Studies on adaptation to complete dentures. Part I: Oral and manual motor ability

The assessment of an edentate patient's ability to adapt to new dentures is still a problem in prosthetic treatment. In this study the oral and manual motor abilities were compared with a patient's ability to adapt in 60 experienced denture wearers who had new dentures inserted 2-3 weeks before the experiment. To assess the oral muscular co-ordination ability a modification of the muscular ability (MA) test was used. To determine the manual motor ability a 'pinhole-board' test and a 'margin-cutting' test were employed. The degree of adaptation to the new dentures was assessed by a questionnaire. The results show that a patient's age only roughly indicates the capability of adaptation. In contrast to the manual motor ability, the oral motor ability seems to correlate to the patient's adaptation to new dentures (r = 0.55). The manual motor ability was clearly more strongly (r = 0.61) age-related than the oral motor ability (r = 0.33). The permanent altered oral perception through denture wearing and a training effect by the permanent challenge of intra-oral denture management are discussed.