Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate the usability of tongue pressure measurement made by JMS Co., Ltd. as a method of quantitative evaluation of tongue motor function in oral functional evaluation, using a newly developed tongue pressure measurement device approved as the first medical device for tongue pressure measurement in Japan.
The subjects were divided into a “disorder group” and a “control group”. The former group consisted of 115 patients having dysphagia or dysarthria resulting from cerebrovascular or neuromuscular disease, and the latter group consisted of 29 people without such disorders.
The underlying disease, presence of dysphagia or dysarthria, repetitive saliva swallowing test, and so on were evaluated along with tongue pressure. The tongue pressure measurement was performed by compressing the balloon against the palate for 5 to 7 seconds with maximum voluntary effort, and repeating three times. The mean value of the three measurements was defined as the “tongue pressure value” for each subject.
To evaluate the usability of tongue pressure measurement, the reproducibility of the tongue pressure value and the correlations between tongue pressure value and other functional evaluation items was analyzed statistically.
The reproducibility of the tongue pressure value evaluated from the standard deviation of the tongue pressure values in each subject was comparable with the results of previous studies. In the correlations between the tongue pressure values and the conventional functional items, we obtained the following findings. The tongue pressure value of the disorder group was lower than that of the control group. The tongue pressure value of the patients with low swallowing ability was lower than that of the patients having no swallowing problem. The tongue pressure value of patients with dysphagia in the mastication phase and in the oral phase was lower than that of the control group. The tongue pressure value of the patients who were suspected of dysphagia from the repetitive saliva swallowing test was lower than that of normal people.
It was confirmed that the reproducibility of the tongue pressure values using the new device was accurate and useful without any clinical problem. The correlations between the tongue pressure value and other functional evaluation items were estimated by objective statistical analyses.
It is suggested that the tongue pressure value could be a useful quantitative indicator in the usual qualitative functional evaluation. Furthermore, this device (JMS TPM-01) is a useful measuring tool in the oral functional evaluation.
