Sports mouthguards (also referred to as football protectors, sports mouthpieces, or spelled as two words "mouth guards") are resilient plastic appliances that have been designed in a fashion where they cover over and encase an athlete's teeth and the gums and bone that support them.
The idea is that when a guard is worn it helps to provide protection for the hard (teeth and jaw) and soft (lips, cheeks, gums) tissues of the mouth by way of absorbing and redistributing the forces generated by traumatic blows.
The construction and design of sports guards may all seem very similar but, in fact, the various types of guards that are available each provide both different features and varying degrees of mouth protection. Custom mouthguards are typically regarded as the most protective and best type of sports mouthpiece, followed by "boil and bite" and then stock mouthguards.
The importance of an athlete wearing a sports mouthpiece when participating in almost any type of sport cannot be over emphasized. You might be surprised to learn that one study discovered that at the student level the incidence of mouth injury was actually higher for basketball and soccer athletes than for football and hockey participants. Basketball players were found to be twice as likely to sustain a mouth injury as football players.
Now before we can expect you to believe these statements we must reveal to you that the use of a mouthguard was mandated by the football and hockey programs evaluated by this study but not by the basketball and soccer programs. These findings do demonstrate however how the use of mouthguard can transform an environment where mouth injury might almost be expected, to one where it becomes very much less of an issue.
Probably the most significant benefit that a mouthguard can provide is protection against damage to teeth and dental work. When a blow is delivered to the mouth the forces of the impact are absorbed by the structures the blow lands upon. In the case of hard oral tissues such as teeth, a forceful impact can easily cause tooth fracture, result in tooth dislodgement, or damage existing dental work (dental crowns, bridges, porcelain veneers, dental implants).
A sports mouthguard can help to dissipate the total amount of energy that has to be absorbed by any one tooth or region of the mouth. The spongy resiliency of a mouthguard can help to absorb some of the energy of a blow. The stiffness of the mouthguard can help to distribute the energy of a traumatic force over a greater surface area. Both of these effects will lessen the total force load any one tooth is subjected to and therefore lessen the likelihood that chipping, breaking, or even tooth dislodgement will occur.
Along these same lines, to some degree a mouth protector can help to prevent jaw bone fracture. A mouthguard's resiliency and stiffness once again both come into play and can help to minimize the total amount of force that any one portion of the jaw is subjected to.
Athletic mouthguards can also help prevent tooth damage that might be caused by tooth to tooth contact. Hard collisions or blows directed to the head or mouth can result in a motion where the athlete's jaws come together forcibly. The resiliency of that portion of a mouthguard that covers over the chewing surface of the wear's teeth can help to cushion the effects of this reaction and therefore help to prevent tooth damage.
A mouthguard can help to minimize the amount of soft tissue damage that is caused by a traumatic event. A forceful blow can press a person's lips or cheeks against teeth, dental work, or dental appliances in a fashion where they become pierced or torn. The violent jaw movements created by a blow or collision can result in a biting laceration of the lips, cheeks, or tongue.
Mouthguards can act as a buffer between the soft and hard tissues of the mouth. The rounded contours of a guard can help to protect soft tissues. The spongy resilience of a guard can possibly help to buffer or cushion the effects of a blow.
Sports guards can help to minimize soft tissue injury created by dental appliances. The lips and cheeks of those athletes that wear braces (orthodontic appliances) can certainly benefit from the protection a mouthguard. Also, the way the interior contours of a customized mouthguard will fit into those regions where teeth are missing makes it possible that a sports participant can leave their removable partial denture out during practice or games yet still have adequate support for their teeth. A removable partial denture could be dislodged during a traumatic event, resulting in tissue laceration or loss of or damage to the appliance itself.
Some have suggested that wearing a mouthguard can help to reduce the incidence or severity of concussion. This fact is not universally agreed upon by all researchers but certainly there is no downside to wearing a mouthguard. Possibly the use of a mouthguard can help to improve an athlete's performance, in the sense that they may play more aggressively knowing that the likelihood of a mouth injury has been reduced.
Our answer to this question would be that athletes participating in essentially every sport, ranging from football to even on contact sports such as tennis, should wear mouth protectors. And this refers to all time periods during which the sport is being played, both formal competition and practice. The use of a mouthguard is mandated by some of the organization and association that govern some sports. In this country it is commonplace that student athletes participating in football, hockey and boxing are required to wear mouthguards.
With other sports the potential for forceful contact between participants or with objects is somewhat more easily overlooked and, unfortunately, the use of mouthguards is not typically mandated. Most people might not think of basketball as a heavy contact sport, but those that play it can tell you it can become quite physical at times. One might assume that baseball provides even less opportunity for traumatic incident than basketball but studies have suggested that both of these sports can share a common injury rate, on the order of 12% of participants.
All athletes participating in any contact sport (a sport where player contact is a common and expected component of the sport) should wear a mouthguard.
A list of contact sports would, at minimum, include the following: football, boxing, ice hockey, roller hockey, lacrosse, field hockey, rugby, soccer, basketball, water polo, martial arts, and wrestling. Other sports, while typically not considered true contact sports, can still place the athlete at risk and therefore should necessitate the use of a mouth protector. Anyone participating in baseball, racquetball, squash, handball, skiing, skateboarding, rollerblading, skydiving, volleyball, surfing, acrobatics, gymnastics, tennis, and bicycling should protect their mouth with a guard.