Toothbrush with contoured head

Abstract

A toothbrush is described having a contoured head that is suitable for cleaning teeth with orthodontic brackets. The toothbrush head has a ridge located a direction transverse to the longitudinal axis of the toothbrush. Bristles may be attached to the surface of the contoured head and ridge to extend outwardly therefrom. The bristles target the gingival margin, interproximal areas and the surfaces of the orthodontic bracket base as well as the remaining exposed surfaces of the tooth for cleaning.

Description

[0001] This application claims the benefit U.S. Provisional Application No. 60 / 519,612, filed Nov. 14, 2003.FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0002] The present invention relates to toothbrushes. DESCRIPTION OF THE PRIOR ART [0003] To effectively clean teeth, various areas should be targeted to properly remove plaque, debris and bacteria. Orthodontic patients whose teeth have orthodontic brackets attached to them (commonly known as “braces”) have cleaning areas where plaque removal is particularly challenging. These areas are the gingival margin which is the area of the tooth along the gum line, the bracket base around the periphery of the orthodontic bracket and the interproximal areas which are the spaces between contiguous teeth. [0004] Human teeth have a curvature to them in two directions. These are the occlusogingival direction which is the up-and-down direction and the mesiodistal direction which is the side-to-side direction. With the attachment of an orthodontic bracket in the case of...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

With the attachment of an orthodontic bracket in the case of an orthodontic patient, properly cleaning all the necessary areas becomes quite difficult.

The substantially planar shape of the toothbrush head does not properly take into account the occlusogingival and mesiodistal curvatures of the tooth and with this design, a modified brushing technique is needed to clean the areas around an orthodontic bracket.

With the presence of an orthodontic bracket, the bristles targeting the outer surface of the tooth would be impeded and may result in ineffective cleaning.

The orientation of the bristles as a result of this design would not be able to effectively clean the mesial and distal wings (the left and right edges) of the orthodontic bracket.

A complete cleaning would require a modified technique and the additional bank of bristles could become awkward.

Again, this design fails to target the mesial and distal wings of an orthodontic bracket and would not be effective in cleaning the gingival margin due to the orientation of the bristles.

This design as before fails to target the mesial and distal wings of the bracket and furthermore the “U” shaped channel is fixed in size and therefore may not accommodate the various sizes of orthodontic brackets available.

There is additionally a risk of inadvertent contact between the toothbrush's “U” shaped channel and the bracket due to the surrounding fit which could cause undesired de-bonding of the bracket from the tooth.

However this design fails to target the mesial and distal wings of the bracket and furthermore would not properly clean the interproximal areas between contiguous teeth with the head arrangement given and subsequently, an auxiliary instrument would be required.

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