Speech rehabilitation of maxillectomy patients with hollow bulb obturator

To evaluate the effect of hollow bulb obturator prosthesis on articulation and nasalance in maxillectomy patients.

A total of 10 patients, who were to undergo maxillectomy, falling under Aramany classes I and II, with normal speech and hearing pattern were selected for the study. They were provided with definitive maxillary obturators after complete healing of the defect. The patients were asked to wear the obturator for six weeks and speech analysis was done to measure changes in articulation and nasalance at four different stages of treatment, namely, preoperative, postoperative (after complete healing, that is, 3-4 months after surgery), after 24 hours, and after six weeks of providing the obturators. Articulation was measured objectively for distortion, addition, substitution, and omission by a speech pathologist, and nasalance was measured by Dr. Speech software.

The statistical comparison of preoperative and six weeks post rehabilitation levels showed insignificance in articulation and nasalance. Comparison of post surgery complete healing with six weeks after rehabilitation showed significant differences in both nasalance and articulation.

Providing an obturator improves the speech closer to presurgical levels of articulation and there is improvement in nasality also.