Popular source:

“What is the Best Toothbrush for Orthodontic Braces?” Ebraces.org. Accessed October 21, 2017.

The author is Ebraces.org, a government supported website that teaches people all about oral health, orthodontic insurance, braces, and how they affect your teeth. They have a team of writers who work together to provide the public with the best advice possible with everyone writing and reviewing every article that the website produces.

This article identified many different types of brushes and tools one can use, but there is no special toothbrush that is particularly made for braces. They mention that there are specialty brushes, but do not identify any characteristics of the brushes and push for using the many tools they mentioned. They even identify techniques to use the different tools for people who have braces. My group and I can possibly start our presentation off by identifying that there are many common tools that orthodontists recommend for people with braces, but there is no one tool that is tailored specifically for them.

Academic sources:

Maida, Carl A., Marvin Marcus., Ron D Hays, Ian D Coulter, Francisco Ramos-gomez, et al. 2015. “Child and adolescent perceptions of oral health over the life course.” Quality of Life Research 24, no. 11 (November): 2739-2751. Accessed October 21, 2017.

All the individuals included in the citation are part of Quality of Life Research, an international, multidisciplinary journal, that devotes itself to original research, theoretical articles, and methodological reports in the health sciences.

This scholarly article primarily focuses on the perceptions children and young adults have on different oral treatments. They mainly described how good oral health can increase the life of one’s teeth and quality of life, can enhance social relationships, and ways to maintain a positive attitude while getting these treatments done. This article pertains to my project because this it points out that once a patient gets braces, they must be willing to spend extra money to buy the various costly cleaning tools that are braces specific. This infers that there still is not a tool that is easier and makes the treatment less painful. They agree that dedication is required to properly clean one’s teeth with braces on, but there is no other way around it. With my group’s innovation, there would be a less painful and more efficient tool for young people to clean their braces with.

Lowery, Mark. 2016. “Through the teeth, over the gums: Pastes, whiteners, and more.” Drug Topics 160, no. 2 (Feb): 30-31. Accessed October 21, 2017.

Mark Lowery is an editor for Drug Topics magazine. He has written over 100 articles for the magazine. Drug Topics is a top-ranked pharmacy resource for community and health-system pharmacists that has been around since 1856. There are many credible authors within the organization who review each other’s articles before publishing to ensure quality work and maintain the magazine’s high reputation.

This article mainly focuses on the dental care of children between the ages of 14 and 17. It calls upon a few products in the market that could help children keep their teeth healthier and explains exactly how they could do so. This particular article is very useful for my specific healthcare innovation because it includes one product that many experts in the field recommend to their braces patients. The Kolibree toothbrush, designed for children with braces, is an electric toothbrush that helps a person brush easily, safely, and more gently around their brackets. They monitor and advise this through an app that the consumer would download from the app store. However, the shape of this toothbrush is just like any other toothbrush so it goes to show how the toothbrush my team and I are making is clearly the first of its kind with the focus on the physical design.