Powered Toothbrushes Compared
Rotating vs. Sonic Action
From the April edition of the Journal of the American Dental Association (JADA 151(4) April 2020), a comparison of 15 different studies comparing a rotating device such as the Oral B 1500 and Sonic Action such as the Phillips Sonicare. Overall, the Oral B type toothbrushes were slightly better than the Sonicare types. However, it is important to note the 12 of the studies concluded the rotating toothbrushes where better were funded by the manufacturer, and the other three studies independently funded found the sonic toothbrushes to be superior. Just because a study is funded by the manufacture and shows positive results does not necessarily mean the results are not valid. But one has to be careful of the inherent bias this brings. The sonic type toothbrushes may be more effective in removing the hard deposits on the teeth called calculus.
My conclusions are still that with a proper technique and adequate time spent, a regular old manual toothbrush should be able to produce good results for cleaning of teeth. Powered toothbrushes provide a slight increase in effectiveness. Which type of powered toothbrush is better is still not clear. For individuals without braces and do not have a tarter (calculus) build-up problem, the rotating type such as Oral B may be slightly better, for those with braces or significant tarter build up the Sonicare may be marginally better.