• Prarom Salimee
• Supida Anusornniti-sara
• Dussadee Pradubploy
• Kriangkrai Vathanalaoha
• Chanwit Prapinjumrune
• Chutima Theeraraungchaisri

Objective Masticatory efficiency play a major role in the digestive system which directly affects physical health. Therefore, evaluation of masticatory efficiency is very important, especially patients wearing dentures. Masticatory ability is an individual judgement of his or her masticatory function. Masticatory performance is the capacity to reduce size of food when chewed for given strokes of chewing before swallowing. The purpose of this study was to compare the outcome between the masticatory ability and masticatory performance in the elderly patients wearing dentures in evaluating the masticatory efficiency.

Material and methods 62 elderly patients wearing complete dentures (CD) or removeable partial dentures (RPD) from Graduate Prosthodontic clinic, Faculty of Dentistry, Chulalongkorn University, were divided into 3 groups. The first group (n=18) was wearing upper and lower CD, the second group (n=29) was wearing RPD against RPD or CD, the third group (n=15) was wearing upper or lower RPD against natural dentition. The masticatory ability was evaluated from a question asking about their satisfaction in chewing with the present dentures. The masticatory performance was measured experimentally using sieving technique. Each patient was asked to chew a piece of carrot (size 1x2x1 cm3, 3 grams) for 40 times and brought to pass the coarse and fine sieve, respectively. The remained carrots in both sieves were dried, weighted, and calculated for the percentage ratio. The masticatory performance of three groups and the relationship between masticatory ability and masticatory performance were statistically analyzed by Chi-square test at the significant level of 0.05, using the acceptable level of masticatory performance >70%.

Results It was found that there was no significant difference between the masticatory performance among three groups of patients wearing dentures. Furthermore, there was no relationship between masticatory ability and masticatory performance in elderly patients wearing dentures.

Conclusion The results suggested that dentist should evaluate the masticatory efficiency of patients wearing denture not only by asking their opinion, but the chewing test was also necessary.

(CU Dent J 2003;26:211-20)