Patent Publication Number: US-2020289245-A1

Title: Dental Plaque Cleanser

Description:
FIELD OF INVENTION 
     The field of the invention is a dental clinic device which is for cleansing dental supragingival and subgingival plaque biofilm as well as scaling calculus. 
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     Dental plaque biofilm is one of the major causes for dental decay and gum disease. Worldwide, 60-90% of school children and nearly 100% of adults have dental decay reported by WHO. Half of America adults have periodontal disease reported by CDC. 
     Dental professionals recommend people to visit dental clinic twice a year for teeth cleaning and use scaling device such as ultrasonic scaler for the teeth cleaning. The ultrasonic scalers are often limited to the supragingival not the subgingival area and using a vibrating metal tip to tapping harden calculus but are incapable to cleanse sticky colorless plaque biofilm therein. 
     The ultrasonic scalers are unable to cleanse the unattached subgingival plaque biofilm which are dominant bacteria caused periodontitis and other diseases. The ultrasonic scalers are also unable to cleanse plaque at tooth extraction site that possible cause cancer. 
     The calculus is mineralized, none bio-active “dead” plaque. Therefore, the ultrasonic scaler is not effective for cleanse bio-active Dental plaque biofilm. 
     A study by the Biofilm Center of the University of South California finds dental water jet removes 99.9 percent of dental plaque biofilm. Dental water jet hygiene devices have been introduced: an oral hygiene apparatus U.S. Pat. No. 10,064,710, and a compact oral hygiene device U.S. Pat. No. 10,405,954. These oral hygiene devices cleanse sticky colorless supragingival plaque biofilm on tooth surface, the subgingival plaque biofilm in the periodontal pocket and suck out the subgingival plaque biofilm therein. But they have difficulty to remove harden calculus. Both of the mentioned innovations are for families not for dental professionals. 
     The present invention satisfies the shortcomings, limitations or disadvantages of dental clinic devices for the cleansing subgingival and supragingival plaque in the market and patent proposals in the prior art. 
     CROSS REFERENCE 
     U.S. Patent Documents 
       
     
       
         
           
               
               
               
             
               
                   
               
             
            
               
                 9,463,077 
                 October 2016 
                 Zolhayat 
               
               
                 6,619,957 
                 September 2003 
                 Mosch et al. 
               
               
                 10,405,954 
                 September 2019 
                 Zhang et al. 
               
               
                 10,064,710 
                 September 2018 
                 Zhang et al. 
               
               
                   
               
            
           
         
       
     
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     The present invention, dental plaque cleanser, is a dental clinic device for completely cleanse supragingival and subgingival plaque biofilm as well as scaling calculus. The dental plaque cleanser comprises a water jet biofilm cleansing unit, ultrasonic scaling unit and a power supply. 
     The ultrasonic scaling unit comprises a controller circuit, a water/air supply, an oscillator, a transducer, a handpiece with tips and foot controller. The ultrasonic scaling unit is for scaling calculus. The ultrasonic scaling unit is activated by pushing on the foot controller. The said oscillator generates electrical energy including a current, a voltage and frequencies; the said transducer with handpiece converts electrical energy and actuates mechanical vibration on a water cooled tip; and the vibrated tip taps the calculus on the tooth. 
     The water jet biofilm cleansing unit comprises a controller circuit, a water supply, a motor, a coherent pump, a handle with tips. The water jet biofilm cleansing unit cleans supragingival and subgingival plaque biofilm. The coherent pump is a unique for the dental plaque cleanser. I named it a “coherent” pump; it is a specially designed as a constant-flow pump. 
     The coherent pump comprises three diaphragm chambers, each diaphragm chamber has an inlet and an outlet with the pressures of the diaphragm chambers to open and close. The coherent pump further comprises a lever having triple arms with each arm mounted at the three diaphragm chambers respectively. The coherent pump further comprises a buffer room with an outlet of the pump. Three outlets of the diaphragm chambers can fluidly connect to the buffer room. A center pole of the lever eccentrically inserts into a rotating arm of the motor. The lever is not rotating during the motor running but said triple arms asynchronously vibrating. Said arms vibrate changes the volume and pressure of corresponding diaphragm chamber. When an arm pushes and shrinking the diaphragm chamber, the water in the diaphragm chamber is propelled out to the buffer room. When an arm pulls the diaphragm chamber goes back to the original shape the water is drawn from the water supply to the diaphragm chamber. Said triple arms are asynchronously vibrated with corresponding diaphragm chambers propel water out to the buffer room and draw water into the diaphragm chambers. The coherent pump propels a pressured constant-flow out, at very low noise and very high energy efficacy. 
     Plurality of exchangeable tips could utilize constant water jet to blasting, penetrating and cleansing biofilms. A Swirl jet tip is a unique and having multifunction. The Swirl jet tip has a twist head. The twist head comprises a pipe with male external thread, a cap with a female internal thread and a pinhole centrally located at the top of the cap. The twist head further comprises a mechanism which divides a single flow into two separated flows, then alters flows directions and twists them. When the cap is screwed tightly against the pipe, twisted two flows eject out from said pinhole form a swirl hollow cone shaped that could open user&#39;s periodontal pocket to wash out plaque therein, meanwhile the high speed rotating water generates a low pressure zone like an aspirator to suck out the plaques in the bottom of user&#39;s periodontal pocket; when the cap is screwed slight loosely against the pipe, twisted two flows eject out from the said pinhole form a swirl stream shaped that cleanses a user&#39;s tooth extraction site; when the cap is screwed more loosely against the pipe, twisted two flows eject out from the said pinhole form a swirl drilling shaped that cleanses a spot such as a white spot. 
     Various objects, features, aspects and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description of preferred embodiments of the invention, along with the accompanying drawings in which like numerals represent like components. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         FIG. 1  is a block diagram of a dental plaque cleanser. 
         FIG. 2  is a block diagram of an ultrasonic scaling unit. 
         FIG. 3  is a block diagram of a water jet biofilm cleansing unit. 
         FIG. 4  is a schematic view of the coherent pump. 
         FIG. 5  is a schematic view of the disassembled coherent pump. 
         FIG. 6  is a cross-sectional view showing the water flow of the coherent pump. 
         FIG. 7  is a schematic showing a Swirl Jet tip. 
         FIG. 8  is a schematic showing a twist head section of the Swirl Jet tip. 
         FIG. 9  is a schematic showing a cap is screwed tightly of the Swirl Jet tip. 
         FIG. 10  is a schematic showing a cap is screwed slight loosely of the Swirl Jet tip. 
         FIG. 11  is a schematic showing a cap is screwed more loosely of the Swirl Jet tip. 
     
    
    
     DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS 
     With reference to  FIG. 1 , an embodiment of a Dental plaque cleanser  100  generally comprises an ultrasonic scaling unit  20 , a water jet biofilm cleanser unit  30  and power supply  10 . 
     With reference to  FIG. 2 , the ultrasonic scaling unit  20  comprises a water/air supply  24 , a controller circuit  25 , an oscillator  26 , a transducer  27 , a handpiece  21 , tips  22  and foot controller  23 . 
     The ultrasonic scaling unit  20  is activated by pushing on the foot controller  23 . The said oscillator  26  generates electrical energy including a current, a voltage and frequencies; the said transducer  27  with said handpiece  21  convert the electrical energy and actuate mechanical vibration on a water cooled said tip  22 ; and the vibrated tip  22  taps the calculus on a tooth. 
     With reference to  FIG. 3 , the water jet biofilm cleanser unit  30  comprises a water supply  33 , a controller circuit  34 , a motor  35 , a coherent pump  36 , handle  31  and tips  32 . 
     With reference to  FIG. 4 , an embodiment of the coherent pump  36  comprises an inlet/outlet section  51 - 1 . The section  51 - 1  comprises a pump inlet  53 , a pump outlet  52  and a buffer room is inside of the section  51 - 1 . The coherent pump  36  further comprises a chambers section  51 - 2  and motor driven section  51 - 3 . 
     With reference to  FIG. 5 , a coherent pump  36  comprises three diaphragm chambers  55 - 1 ,  55 - 2  and  55 - 3  in said section  51 - 2 . Said coherent pump  36  further comprises a lever with triple arms  54 - 1 ,  54 - 2  and  54 - 3  correspondingly mounted at the bottoms of said three chambers  55 - 1 ,  55 - 2  and  55 - 3 . Each diaphragm chamber has an inlet and an outlet. The  FIG. 5  shows the chambers  55 - 1  has an inlet  56 - 1  and an outlet  57 - 1 . The  FIG. 5  also shows the chambers  55 - 2  has an inlet  56 - 2  and an outlet  57 - 2 . The lever&#39;s center pole  58  eccentrically inserts into a motor&#39;s rotating arm. 
     With reference to  FIG. 6 , a cross-sectional view shows the water flows inside the coherent pump. When the lever arm  54 - 1  goes down and the chamber  55 - 1  goes back to its original shape and draws water from inlet  53  though the inlet  56 - 1  into chamber  55 - 1 . Meanwhile, the lever arm  54 - 2  goes up and the chamber  55 - 2  shrink with pressure increases and the water in the chamber  55 - 2  is propelled out through the outlet  57 - 2  to the buffer room  59 . Said coherent pump draws water in from the inlet  53  by the three diaphragm chambers  55 - 1 ,  55 - 1  and  55 - 3  take turns unremittingly and the water is propelled out at the outlet  52  is a pressured constant-flow. 
     Plurality of exchangeable tips could utilize constant water jet to blasting, penetrating and cleansing biofilms. An embodiment of Swirl jet tip  32  with references to  FIG. 7  and  FIG. 8 , the Swirl jet tip  32  comprises a twist head  70 . The twist head  70  comprises a pipe  71  with a close off end, two holes  75 - 1  and  75 - 2  opposites each other on the wall of pipe  71 , the hole  75 - 1  is show in the  FIG. 8  but another hole  75 - 2  at the hidden side of pipe  71  and could not show; the twist head  70  further comprises two opposite parallel slopes  76 - 1  and  76 - 2  at the close off end of said pipe  71 ; The twist head  70  further comprises a ring gasket  74 , an external thread  73  and a flange  72 ; The twist head  70  further comprises a cap  77  with internal thread that matches external thread  73  in the pipe  71 , and a pinhole  78  centrally located at the top of the cap  77 . 
     When water flows into said twist head  70  and then flows out from said two holes  75 - 1  and  75 - 2  become two flows. The cap  77  is screwed onto the pipe  71 , the two water flows are blocked by the cap  77  and ring gasket  74  then two separated flows will go to the two slops  76 - 1  and  76 - 2  to twist. And 
     With reference to  FIG. 9 , when the cap  77  is screwed tightly against the pipe  71 , twisted two flows eject out from the pinhole  78  form a swirl hollow cone shaped J 1  that opens a user&#39;s periodontal pocket to wash out plaque therein. The rotating water of swirl hollow cone shaped J 1  generates a low pressure zone and suck out plaque in deep of user&#39;s periodontal pocket. 
     With reference to  FIG. 10 , when the cap  77  is screwed slight loosely against the pipe  71 , twisted two flows eject out from the pinhole  78  form a swirl stream shaped J 2  that cleanses a user&#39;s tooth extraction site; 
     With reference to  FIG. 11 , when the cap  77  is screwed more loosely against the pipe  71 , twisted two flows eject out from the said pinhole  78  form a swirl drilling shaped J 3  that cleanses a spot such as a white spot. 
     The water jet biofilm cleansing unit  30  cleans dental supragingival and subgingival plaque biofilm. 
     Thus, specific embodiments and applications of a dental plaque cleaner have been disclosed. It should be apparent, however, to those skilled in the art that many more modifications beside those already described are possible without departing from the inventive concepts herein. The inventive subject matter, therefore, is not to be restricted except in the spirit of the appended claims. Moreover, in interpreting both the specification and the claims, all terms should be interpreted in the broadest manner possible consistent with the context, In particular, the terms “comprises” and “comprising” should be interpreted as referring to elements, components, or steps in a non-exclusive manner, indicating that the referenced elements, components, or steps may be present or utilized, or combined with other elements, components or steps that are not expressly referenced.