Influence of the complete denture treatment on patients speech intelligibility

Abstract

Context: An important aspect of oral rehabilitation that has been neglected all the while is speech efficiency which is also an important part of complete oral rehabilitation of edentulous patients apart from mastication and esthetics. Aim: Hence, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the influence of the complete denture treatment on patient's speech intelligibility using automatic speech recognition system. Settings and Design: Twenty completely edentulous patients were analyzed for speech intelligibility before and after denture insertion to check for improvement in phonetics after denture fabrication and insertion. Subjects and Methods: Speech was recorded in twenty edentulous patients 2 weeks before the fabrication of new complete maxillary and mandibular dentures and 1 week thereafter. Speech intelligibility was computed based on the word accuracy by means of an automated speech recognition system, and comparison was done between speech before and after denture insertion. Statistical Analysis Used: Statistical analysis was done using descriptive and inferential statistics using Student's paired t-test, and software used in the analysis was SPSS 17.0 version and P < 0.05 is considered as level of significance. Results: Improvement in the speech intelligibility of the patients was noted after fabrication of denture. Conclusions: It is possible to evaluate the mechanisms and the processes leading to speech difficulties and hence to make required adjustments within the denture which may produce the desired speech change as it is evident from the present study.