Page 128 - Impact of implant retained overdenture treatment and speech, oromyofunction, social participation and quality of life.
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Chapter 5
Discussion
The present study examined the impact of dental rehabilitation treatment on quality of life and social participation, taking into account patients’ personality ratings and using observer informants beyond patients’ self-reports of treatment impact. These research innovations are necessary and timely given that previous investigations have shown that patients’ personality may affect the perception of their personal psycho-social conditions and that self- descriptions not necessarily match with observer reports of perceived impact of treatment 7,19,33.
As a consequence of including all patients that presented themselves for reconstructive treatment, three distinctive groups could be recognized. Patients with partial restoration missing one tooth and patients who were edentulous in a full jaw and were either restored with a removable denture (with or without implants) or received a full fixed bridge on several implants. Previous research indicates that patients are more satisfied when treated with respectively implant retained overdentures compared to conventional removable dentures 7. Studies revealed that improved patient outcomes are comparable between overdenture or fixed bridge 34. Hence the patients were grouped according to single or complete jaw restorations. Because the final outcome and the questionnaires pertained to functional and aesthetic repair, it was assumed that oral function and psychosocial activities are comparable irrespective of the fact that their overdenture is removable and the fixed bridge is non-detachable. Still this is an issue for further research.
A first notable finding was that patients in the complete jaw restoration group experienced worse QoL before treatment. This finding is in line with expectations given that they are edentulous or have very bad dentition, while those receiving a single unit denture, in general, only have one missing tooth. After treatment the differences are not significant anymore, suggesting that the full denture group catches up with the single-unit group reaching similar quality of life levels
A second result was that, across patients undergoing different dental treatments, converge between self- and observer ratings of quality of life




























































































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