A Study on Speech Analysis in Acquired Maxillary Defect Patients Treated with Maxillary Obturator.

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to assess the speech analysis in acquired maxillary defect patients treated with maxillary obturator. Total of 16 patients were considered in the study. The age group of these patients ranged from 40 to 75 years with a mean age of 59.5 years, irrespective of their gender. The surgical obturator was fabricated using self-cure acrylic. The surgical obturator was delivered immediately after surgery. After a healing period of about 2 weeks, the surgical obturator was replaced by an interim prosthesis. This was processed with the help of heat-cure polymethylmethacrylate. The total number of patients was divided into two groups, namely, (A) Definitive obturator group and (B) Interim obturator group. The speech intelligibility (SI), was analyzed. The mean scores for SI before prosthesis in definitive and interim groups were 19.13 ± 3.22 and 19.87 ± 1.72, respectively. This was increased after prosthesis insertion to 24.38 ± 1.30 and 22.37 ± 1.18, which further increased after adaptation period of 2 months to 28.75 ± 1.28 and 24.62 ± 1.59 in two groups. The present study concluded that speech was severely affected by maxillary resection and that rehabilitation with maxillary obturator was successful in restoring these aspects of speech.