Page 54 - Impact of implant retained overdenture treatment and speech, oromyofunction, social participation and quality of life.

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Chapter 2
Results
Articulation
Table 3 and table 2 show the results of the perceptual speech evaluation based on the picture naming and reading test. When the patients received a new denture, and after a certain adaptation period, they presented with distortions of the following sounds: /s/ (PNT: 9/18 and reading: 11/18), /z/ (PNT: 3/18 and reading: 2/18), /ʃ/ (PNT: 1/18 and reading: 2/18), /t/ (PNT: 8/18 and reading: 4/18), /d/ (reading: 1/18), /n/ (PNT: 2/18 and reading: 2/18) and /l/ (PNT: 5/18 and reading: 4/18). After surgery, the denture is adjusted to provisionally fit over the implant abutments. Here the following sounds were distorted: /s/ (PNT: 6/15 and reading: 8/15), /z/ (PNT: 1/15 and reading: 3/15), /t/ (PNT: 5/15 and reading: 2/15), /n/ (reading: 3/15) and /l/ (PNT: 3/15 and reading: 3/15). Finally, when the osseointegration of the implants was satisfactory, the overdenture is manufactured and placed over the bridge on implants. After adaptation to the final situation, the sounds /s/ (PNT: 7/19 and reading: 7/19), /z/ (reading: 2/19), /t/ (PNT: 3/19 and reading: 1/19), /n/ (PNT: 1/19 and reading: 1/19) and /l/ (PNT: 3/19 and reading: 4/19) were found to be distorted. These articulation errors consisted of sigmatismus stridens (disorder of the /s/ sound accompanied with a whistle sound), sigmatismus simplex (disorder of the /s/ sound with insufficient frication), disturbed /ʃ/ and an addental (sound production with the tongue tip against the central incisors) and interdental (sound production with the tongue tip between de central incisors) production of the /t/, /d/, /n/ and /l/ (table 2). The most important clinical change in number of articulation errors was shown when comparing the measurement with the new conventional denture to the stage with final connection of the overdenture to the implants. The number of articulation disorders per person declined clinically, however not statistically over time.
Spectral evaluation of the /s/ sound compared over the different stages of the treatment revealed no significant results (α<0.05/3) in all examined speech samples. Figure 3 shows the sample outcomes of the spectral moments (mean frequency, standard deviation, skewness and kurtosis) and the peak frequency value of the /s/ sound of one subject pronouncing sample word ‘set’ in the three different stages of the treatment.