Two-colour chewing gum mixing ability: digitalisation and spatial heterogeneity analysis

Area of Science:

• Gerontology
• Biomedical Engineering
• Dental Science

Background:

• Assessing masticatory performance is crucial for overall health, but existing methods are not universally applicable.
• A specific need exists for a suitable masticatory assessment tool for elderly individuals with dementia.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the efficacy of a two-colour chewing gum mixing ability test as a proxy for masticatory performance in elderly individuals with dementia.
• To evaluate the reliability and validity of this novel chewing gum test.

Main Methods:

• A fully automated digital analysis algorithm was used with two-coloured gum samples.
• The test involved a stepwise increase in chewing cycles (Experiment 1) and a test-retest assessment (Experiment 2).
• Results were compared to an established wax cubes mixing ability test (Experiment 3).

Main Results:

• The two-colour gum test demonstrated sensitivity to increasing chewing cycles (F5,65 = 57·270, P = 0·000).
• The test-retest reliability was high, with an intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) of 0·714 (P = 0·004).
• No significant correlation was found between the two-colour gum test and the wax cubes test.

Conclusions:

• The two-colour chewing gum mixing ability test is a reliable and sensitive method for assessing masticatory function.
• This method is recommended as an appropriate tool for evaluating masticatory performance in elderly individuals with dementia.