The Beam Toothbrush Transforms Dental Hygiene

A few years ago, an old roommate of mine informed me that I grind my teeth almost constantly as I slept. After talking with some people, I discovered that this, combined with some dental problems I encountered in high school, could be the underlying cause of many of my health problems. Primarily, migraines. Before that point, I didn’t realize just how much dental issues can affect other parts of the body.

So when I saw the Beam Toothbrush,  I was pretty excited. There’s so many devices out there to help improve people’s health, but I’ve never seen anything that really focuses on teeth brushing, which is essential for good health.

The Beam Toothbrush is a toothbrush that monitors oral hygiene, and sinks the data to a smart phone app. The app will then track the data for all activated brushes, create graphs with the data, and inform the user of certain things, like a missed brushing time. Each brush can only be assigned to one user, for obvious reasons, but several users can be tracked on the app.

From the looks of the website, and just the idea behind it, I think this is a toothbrush that is aimed toward children. It seems like a good way for parents to see if their child is really brushing their teeth. Because ask any parent — most kids aren’t the best brushers out there. I know I wasn’t.

I like the idea behind it, and I’ll be interested to see if it takes off at all. I’m not so sure I’d spend 49.99 on a toothbrush that wasn’t an electric one, especially for a child, but it might be an well-made investment for those who have children that forget to brush. Knowing that your parent has access to your teeth brushing “records” may be good motivation for some not to forget.

It comes in either blue or pink, and runs on AA batteries. It is a manual toothbrush, so it’s not going to be as fancy as ones like the Sonicare brand (which is what I use, and love), but it seems perfect for children. It is available for 49.99, and replacement heads are 3.99. Dentists and oral surgeons can also purchase them for resell. The app is only available on iOS systems.

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February 27, 2013 I Written By

Katie Clark is originally from Colorado and currently lives in Utah with her husband and son. She writes primarily for Smart Phone Health Care, but contributes to several Health Care Scene blogs, including EMR Thoughts, EMR and EHR, and EMR and HIPAA. She enjoys learning about Health IT and mHealth, and finding ways to improve her own health along the way.

Filed Under: Apple  Gadgets  Health Care  Medical Devices  Mobile Health Care  Patient Home Monitoring  Smart Phones  Tablets
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Teeth Defender – Helping Kids Not Fear the Dentist Through a Game

Dentists may be the most feared people in the medical field.  For those who have perfect teeth maybe it isn’t as much of an issue, but for people who really have to get a lot of work done it can be a miserable experience.  Kids are especially vulnerable to this fear with their lower pain tolerance, and the fact that they just generally scare easier.

One simple way to eliminate fear is to distract someone so that they don’t even notice what is going on.  In a lot of ways that is exactly what games do; they distract us from other things.  Sometimes they distract us from things we are supposed to be doing, but in places like the dentist’s office, they can help distract us from an unpleasant experience.

Students from the Technical University Delft in the Netherlands are developing a game to help kids get through the scary experience going to the dentist can be.  The game is played on a set of special glasses with a simple game controller.  As you may expect the bad guys are candy and soda, and the good guys are toothbrushes and toothpaste.

While the game obviously cannot physically get rid of the fear experienced at the dentist, but it can provide a nice distraction.  It also helps the dentist in doing their work, as the glasses start to go dark if the patient closes their mouth.  So not only does the patient get a little distraction, the dentist gets some help with their work.

The game is still in development, and should be released in a pilot version by the middle of next year.

A more in-depth article can be found here, but it is written in Dutch.

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November 28, 2011 I Written By

Filed Under: Health Care  Health Games  Healthcare IT  mHealth  Mobile Health Care
Tags:  Dentist Games  Fear of Dentists  Healthcare Games for Kids  Technical University Delft  Toothcare Games