Evaluation of dental pain decreasing with acoustic wave-filtering earplugs

• Main Authors: cheng huan kun, 鄭煥琨
• Other Authors: Sheng-Yang, Lee, PhD
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2003
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/18722397120837775928

碩士 === 臺北醫學大學 === 口腔復健醫學研究所 === 91 === It is usually a terrible experience to people who have toothaches for dental treatments especially when they are cured along with ache and mechanical noise such that most of them cannot be tolerated. For reducing such a condition and to promote the work efficiency for a dentist, in this paper, a new noise-filtered earplug system with available music is developed to filter out dental machine noise and if necessary, it can be adopted as a solution to reduce pain and anxiety of patients during treatments. Furthermore, it can also be a communication tool between the patient and the dentist simultaneously. In this study, various kinds of noises, first of all, are collected through a wireless receiver and then, connected to a personal computer with the software of CoolEdit and LABVIEW to analyze frequency ranges of mechanical noises and finally the cut-off frequency is identified through several comparisons. After the cut-off frequency has been determined, the active noise-filtered system can be designed with several circuits to filter out those frequencies higher than the cut-off frequency and reserve the speech voice only. Besides, the music signals from the MP3 or a CD player can also be transmitted to the earplug system for increasing the signal noise ratio. The anxiety and tension of patients during treatments can, thus, be relaxed due to the euphonious music and toothaches of the patient might be further reduced. Moreover, when the speech signal from the dentist is transmitted into the patient’s earplug, the musical signal can be automatically reduced 12 dB for convenient communications. It is found that the developed noise-filtered earplug system shows good performance by conducting several tests, such as detecting various powers of signals with monitoring the wave forms, identifying the variations of noise and speech signals before and after the use of the filter, and checking working conditions of the designed circuits. To further investigate the adaptability of the noise-filtered earplug system, a cross-sectional study using a self-report questionnaire, including of effectiveness assessment of the earplug system and physical reaction assessment along with the Hume Dynamic Monitor for patients with and without the earplug system, was undertaken. After the results being statistically analyzed, it is show that the designed earplug system does not only reduce the machine noise but also has dominant effect in relieving the anxiety especially when the patients choose their favorite music during treatment.