Before 1961, electric toothbrushes were toothbrushes with a cord attached that had to be plugged into an outlet. Many feared being electrocuted, causing sales of electric toothbrushes to never reach full potential. The manual toothbrush's faith was sealed as the most effective method of home dental care. That all changed when the general electric business (Ge) released the world's first cordless powered toothbrush.
Since then, the electric toothbrush store has exploded. Additions to the features have included; the rotary action (circular motion) released in 1987, the 2 dinky timer, the floss action head, the quadpacer, the Lcd screen on the shaft, a pressure sensor, and the wireless Lcd screen found on the Oral B 9900 Triumph with smart guide.
All the while, the manual toothbrush has remained almost the same since the nylon bristles were used on the toothbrush in the 1930's. Changes have been restricted to the shape of the head and shaft.
Throughout all this, the moot still prevails, which one of these two is more effective towards sound oral health?
Before I go into fluffing up this whole article with facts and details, I'm just going to make it plain and simple; studies published in the American Journal of Dentistry and the British Dental Journal concur that the electric toothbrush is more effective at ridding plaque and preventing gingivitis then manual brushes.
When you think about it, it makes tons of sense. You can reach 100-300 strokes per dinky with a manual toothbrush as opposed to the Oral B Triumph 9900, which gets 41,000 strokes per minute. You'd think that with that amount of strokes per dinky electric toothbrush users would be more prone to Tba (toothbrush abrasion). Just the opposite in fact, manual users tend to scrub harder feeling that they are doing the right thing by adding some "elbow grease." In addition, many powered brushes today come with a self shut off timer after 2 minutes with 30 second signals to switch quadrants. This gives users a best perspective of the time they've taken and how much they have less. Studies show that manual users can median as low as 30 seconds per brushing session, well below the 2 minutes recommended by the Ada.
With all the correlations associated to oral health and heart disease being proven left and right these days, oral health is becoming a top priority. My recommendation would be to invest in an electric toothbrush as they have been proven to be more effective. Who knows, I don't mean to be drastic, but it could save your life one day!
The Ratings Are In - by hand vs galvanic Toothbrushes