What is an Oscillating Electric toothbrush? What is a Sonic Electric toothbrush? Which is better?

From the International Journal of Dental Hygiene, a winner has been nominated as to which Electric toothbrush does a better job at removing plaque–The Oscillating Electric Toothbrush.

Sonic Toothbrush: An example of this is the Sonicare Electric toothbrush – longer, more traditional head with bristles that vibrate at tens of thousands of strokes a minute.

Oscillating Toothbrush: An example of this type of toothbrush would be Oral-B’s electric lineup – with a circular head that rotates and vibrates with a self-proclaimed 48,800 movements per minute .

From a previous post, https://teethandchiefs.com/2021/01/31/doc-what-kind-of-toothbrush-should-i-be-using/ – we know that all things being even an Electric Toothbrush removes more plaque than manual toothbrushes. But now with full peer-review it appears the true winner is the Oscillating Type of electric toothbrushes¹.

Per our usual statement here on Teeth and Chiefs, any toothbrush that gets you to brush with the soft-prickly side is the toothbrush for you. But for pure argument-sake it appears we have a winner, also I like the smaller circular head of the oscillators.

1. Thomassen, T. M. J. A., Van der Weijden, F. A., & Slot, D. E. (2021). The efficacy of powered toothbrushes :‐a systematic review and Network Meta‐analysis‐. International Journal of Dental Hygiene. https://doi.org/10.1111/idh.12563