Date of Award

Spring 1982

Document Type

Thesis - Restricted

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Dentistry

Abstract

The palatal contour of a maxillary denture has been shown to affect the quality of speech. Changes in the intraoral space and resonance imbalance at speech frequencies are suspected to be the possible causes of changes in speech pattern. It is suspected that patients may take a longer time to adapt to the maxillary denture if the palatal contour is incorrect. The ability to adapt to altered designs of dental appliances becomes less in the elder age group. This study will attempt to establish a correlation between palatal contour and speech pattern change by establishing a more reliable method of determining the palatal contour. In this study ten complete denture patients were used. The maxillary complete dentures were duplicated and their contours modified. Sound recordings were made in the following conditions: 1. Edentulous. 2. Existing own denture. 3. Duplicated maxillary denture and existing lower denture. 4. Duplicated maxillary denture with functional base modification and existing lower denture. 5. Duplicated maxillary denture with rugae and ridge modification and existing lower denture. 6. Duplicated maxillary denture with rugae modification and existing lower denture. 7. Duplicated maxillary denture with control thickness modification and existing lower denture. All the recordings were analyzed by the use of Kay Sona-graph. Variations from the spectrographic analysis in speech patterns were noted and treated statistically. Study casts were obtained from the original duplicated denture, and the duplicated denture with modifications. Frontal and sagittal sections of these casts were used for contour analysis. The patients' subjective feelings concerning the different modifications were recorded for reference.

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