Untersuchungen zum Einfluss der Abdichtung durch Obturatoren auf die Sprache von Patienten

The objective of this study was to detect and measure the trans-nasal loss of air on patients with varying maxillary defects, with the help of a phonetic standard procedure, the simultaneous oral-nasal pneumotachographie. The group of test persons consisted of seven male and two female patients (age 20-77 years). The experiments took place in the department of phonetics in the “Institut für Germanistische Sprachwissenschaft” of the University of Marburg (chief director: Prof. H.J. Künzel). The airflows from mouth and nose, as well as the intraoral air pressure were registered. With the help of an external PC hardware and the accompanying software PCquirerX all three curves could be shown on a screen and could be evaluated. A standardized text material consisting of four parts was read by each patient. The first measurements were always recorded with the available and unchanged prosthesis of the patient. If a leakage could be ascertained by the phonetician, the second measurements took place after sealing of the prosthesis at the leaking point, described by the trained listener. For the sealing of the prosthesis, the material with the name DinaBase 7 by the company QuattroTi DenTech was used. The third and last measurements took place in a separate appointment, after permanent modification of the prosthesis in the Zentrum für Zahn-, Mund- und Kieferheilkunde in Marburg. For the evaluation the average values of the nine logatoms which were repeated three times for consonant 1 and 2 per patient were compared in the states “before” (without modification of the prosthesis), “sealed” (after sealing with the material DinaBase 7) and “modificated” (after permanent modification). For the nasal flow significant improvement resulted in the comparison of the data without modification of the prosthesis and after temporary sealing with the material DinaBase 7. Also, significantly better results can be ascertained for the nasal flow in the comparison of the measuring results without modification of the prosthesis and after permanent modification with hard-remaining plastic. For the oral flow no significant differences resulted in the comparison of the data without modification of the prosthesis and after sealing with DinaBase 7. For the intraoral pressure no significant differences could be ascertained aswell. A significantly higher transnasal airflow was registered comparing the data of normal, healthy patients and the data of the patients with obturatorprostheses. According to the results of this study it can be pointed out that a large number of the obturatorprostheses seems to be leaking. The described method can be used to specifically detect air lecks in obturatorprostheses and, by sealing them permanently, to improve the quality of speech for each patient.