Oral hygiene is a concern for people of all ages. Thanks to the wide use of fluoride and accessibility of toothpaste and dental care, within the past twenty years people have put more focus on keeping teeth and gums clean and clear from plaque and disease. One of the recent tools that has changed the way many of us think about caring for our mouths is the electric, or battery-powered, toothbrush. These state of the art tooth care devices, which can run from $5 to $150, have replaced the manual toothbrush for many because they clean better, quicker and more efficiently.
One of the ways the electric toothbrush beats out the manual toothbrush is through bristle rotation. Most electric toothbrush brands have mechanical systems that are built around a rotating head of bristles that move in a motion similar to twisting a door knob right and then left. Traditional, manual toothbrushes are typically operated by running the head back and forth in a lateral motion across the surface of the teeth, which is effective but requires the user to brush back and forth around the same area several times to truly clean it and remove plaque. In contrast with an electric brush that features a rotating head, the user only has to go over an area of the mouth once or twice due to the high rpm of the head (usually between 6,000 and 32,000 rotations per minute) to eliminate the same amount of plaque, making it a quicker and better means to clean than a manual brush.
Power is another aspect of tooth care where the electric brush tops the manual brush. The vibrations of the and the tightly packed bristles mean that the user needs less physical force to clean effectively than a manual brush. Often times, manual users will notice their bristles are flayed out to the sides of the head as a result of the intense pressure needed to clean plaque away from the surface of teeth.
A final example of why electric toothbrushes clean better toothbrushes is oral accessibility. Electric toothbrushes feature smaller, more powerful heads that are able to move easier and fit better into the odd spaces of your mouth and teeth than a large manual toothbrush head. Also, the makes brushing and cleaning care easier for people who have restricted ranges of motion and power, such as those with arthritis, due to the simple maneuverability of the small electric head compared with the awkward and sometimes unwieldy angles a manual brush needs to be moved to achieve the same results.
Tags: manual brush, electric brush, electric toothbrush, manual toothbrush, than manual, back forth