Abstract
Intraoral prosthetic devices have been used for patients with dysphagia for the assistance of motor or sensory function of the tongue, cheek, lips and soft palate, the stabilization of occlusion, and the maintenance or the improvement of mastication and swallowing. However, there has been no report about the application status or the number of the patients who needs these prosthetic devices. Accordingly, we investigated the current situation. A questionnaire was sent to 3,000 dental clinics, 29 university dental hospital, and 500 dental clinics by regular mail.
34.3% of both university hospital of dentistry and dental clinics had some experience of these prosthetic devices, but, 96.9% of dental clinic had no experience of these devices. There were several reasons for delaying application, including lack of funding from public health insurance, no interest in these devices, or lack of knowledge about these devices.
From our estimation, the number of patients who need these devices was 16,368 a year, but 11,922 were never applied. Roughly, these devices were never applied for 4.5% of the patients who need then in university hospitals, 53.8% in hospital dental clinics, and 82.1% in dental clinics. Furthermore, we investigated the eating function in 214 elderly dependent patients. This showed that 20% of them needed these devices. From these point of view, these devices should be applied for dysphagia not only for structural problems, but also for functional problem caused by stroke or dementia.
