Masticatory efficiency

Abstract

One of the purposes of mastication is to break down the food and enlarge the area of food particles. A method is described by which the masticatory efficiency is estimated by calculating the area of a chewed test material, gelatin-hardened by formalin. When test pieces, after being chewed, are placed in a water-soluble dye, the dye will diffuse into the particles, and consequently the dye concentration in the surrounding solution will decrease. The concentration of the dye solution is read from a photometer. A close correlation was found between the gelatin particle area and the reduction of the dye solution concentration. The method will be applied in clinical studies.

Satisfaction with reduced dentitions in elderly people

“…Several studies (Helkimo, Carlsson & Helkimo, 1978;Chauncey et al, f 981) found that the objective chewing performance decreases with the number oi teeth and age. Elderly people need more chewing strokes before the swallowing threshold is reached and the particle size is bigger when swallowing (Agerberg & Carlsson, 1981;Gunne, 1985;Idowu, Graser & Handelman, 1986). For these reasons one would expect a lower percentage of subjects in this study who are satisfied with their chewing ability, but this was not found.…”

Masticatory ability in experimentally induced xerostomia

“…A wide literature about chewing ability is available and many variables have been studied. For overviews, see work by Bates and colleagues [10] and Gunne [ 11 ].…”

Influence of malocclusion and orthodontic treatment in the masticatory efficiency of patients with craniofacial disorders

“…The term masticatory efficiency is commonly used to describe the number of masticatory cycles required to reduce ingested food to swallowable pieces, whereas masticatory performance refers to the particle size distribution of food chewed after a standardized number of cycles [ [15] , [16] , [17] ]. For masticatory efficiency evaluation, the “sieve method” is one of the most common techniques, based on the collection and assessment of particles from previously masticated food [ [18] , [19] , [20] , [21] , [22] , [23] , [24] ]. Mastication is affected, among others, by the occurrence of malocclusion, skeletal configuration, consistency of food, and number of functional teeth.…”