The electric toothbrush was developed in the year 1939 for the first time in Scotland, but it was not able to make its place in the commercial market till the year 1960, when it made its appearance in the open market in the United States. In the year1961, the American company General Electric introduced a rechargeable cordless toothbrush in the market that use to move up and down when it was switched on, it was the beginning of movable electric toothbrushes. These toothbrushes were not able to get hold of the market effectively. In the year 1987, the first rotary action toothbrush appeared in the market and slowly the product started gaining popularity.  There are currently many different varieties of model are available in the market that make use of this mechanism. Many studies conducted to assess the effectiveness of the electric toothbrush indicate that the electric toothbrushes tend to be effective at removing plaque and preventing gingival bleeding.

An electric toothbrush is a device that uses electric power to move the brush head for cleaning teeth and massaging the gums. Electric toothbrushes have small motors that move the head of the toothbrush, movement of the brush head is in an oscillating pattern that helps clean the teeth and in the far corners of the mouth. The electric toothbrushes are great help for those people who have some kind of difficulty in handling the regular toothbrush, or with wrist injuries. To move the electric toothbrush inside of the mouth you do not have to make the usual brushing motions that clean the teeth. Usually such kinds of toothbrushes have a prior defined set of motion for their movement.  Electric toothbrushes are getting more and more popular by each day passing among all the age groups. There are different types of electric toothbrushes that suit different users are now available in the market. The electric toothbrushes can be classified based on their bristle types as very soft, soft, medium, hard and very hard.
 
The soft bristled toothbrushes are generally meant for children and for adults with gum disease. The hard and very hard bristled toothbrushes are for adults with healthy gums and the soft and medium are most widely applied to adults. There are various advantages of using an electric toothbrush. The first one is that as compared to the manual toothbrushes, an electric toothbrush not only cleans the teeth in a better way. The second one is that the electric toothbrush can reach deep ridges and edge parts of the denture that are difficult to be brushed by manual brushes in a very easy manner, not only that but the electric toothbrush can also sweep away the plaque and the bacteria effectively and make your teeth look more beautiful in a matter of days. Some of the modern toothbrushes available incorporate inbuilt timers to remind you to clean each section of your denture separately one after another. As far as the pricing of the electric toothbrushes are concerned they are priced much higher as compared to their manual counterparts but while considering them you should look for the advantages they are providing you over your manual toothbrush.