Sunstar’s new function to visualize the ‘healthy age of the mouth’ with a smartphone app
On February 7, 2023, the Sunstar Group announced that it added a function to measure the “Mouth Genki Age” to the free smartphone app “Mouth Genki Check”. By calculating the difference from the actual age, the aim is to get people of a wide range of generations to take an interest in oral health. Sunstar intends to raise awareness about oral health through this app and contribute to extending healthy life expectancy.
The newly added “Mouth Genki Age” is calculated from the results of a questionnaire conducted on the app and a pronunciation check using the microphone function of the smartphone. In addition, the health condition of the mouth is displayed in radar charts and bar graphs, making it easier to check items such as the strength of chewing, the strength of the tongue, and the dryness of the oral cavity. Hirohiko Hirano, head of the Department of Dentistry and Oral Surgery at the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Geriatrics and Gerontology, who supervised the app, commented, “Based on the data obtained from a large-scale survey, it has been devised so that oral function can be easily evaluated.”
Sunstar believes that preventing oral frailty (decreased oral function) will lead to an extension of healthy life expectancy, and in 2021 began offering the Mouth Genki Check. Frailty is a condition in which the body and mind deteriorate due to aging or disease, and it is said that the risk of needing long-term care increases when frailty occurs. Oral frailty is one of the factors that lead to frailty, and symptoms may progress due to a decrease in the ability to chew food and worsening tongue gliding. According to Director Hirano, “The deterioration of masticatory function, one of the oral frailties, is only noticeable after it has progressed considerably, and response tends to be delayed.” Feel free to check it with the app. It will lead to improvement of consciousness of people who receive it.
