Most over-the-counter boil-and-bite type mouth guards do not provide adequate dental protection as evidenced by the fact that there are more than one million annual orofacial injuries in sports despite the use of mouth guards.
The American Dental Association (ADA) estimates that the lifetime costs for treatment of serious dental injuries are $15,000-$20,000 per tooth, which translates to a total annual cost for dental injuries of half a billion dollars just in the USA. In many cases, the long term consequences of dental injuries are the onset of periodontal or other dental disease, frequently ending up with dental implants.
Low-cost over-the-counter mouth guards suffer from poor fit and are so uncomfortable that athletes tend to remove them intermittently during sports activities. The frequent handling of saliva-coated mouth guards transmits pathogens from dirty hands and fingers to the mouth guards.
Dentist-made custom mouth guards made from acrylic resins require time consuming and very costly laboratory production and fitting procedures. However, these professional-grade mouth guards still are uncomfortable and hinder breathing and talking.
Depending on the type of sports, impacts in the orofacial area can have a wide range of peak forces that are reached over relatively short time periods. Furthermore, the area of impact can vary widely, depending on whether the impact is caused by an object such as a hockey puck or stick, or caused by a crash landing on the chin or cheek where a larger area will be impacted but a lower overall peak forces.
In view of the disadvantages with the prior art mouth guards, it would be beneficial for a mouth guard to provide superior impact protection, yet be unobtrusive and comfortable so users wear it, and when they do, it enables them to easily talk, breathe and drink.