Two‐colour chewing gum mixing ability: digitalisation and spatial heterogeneity analysis

Abstract

Many techniques are available to assess masticatory performance, but not all are appropriate for every population. A proxy suitable for elderly persons suffering from dementia was lacking, and a two-colour chewing gum mixing ability test was investigated for this purpose. A fully automated digital analysis algorithm was applied to a mixing ability test using two-coloured gum samples in a stepwise increased number of chewing cycles protocol (Experiment 1: n = 14; seven men, 19-63 years), a test-retest assessment (Experiment 2: n = 10; four men, 20-49 years) and compared to an established wax cubes mixing ability test (Experiment 3: n = 13; 0 men, 21-31 years). Data were analysed with repeated measures anova (Experiment 1), the calculation of the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC; Experiment 2) and Spearman's rho correlation coefficient (Experiment 3). The method was sensitive to increasing numbers of chewing cycles (F5,65 = 57·270, P = 0·000) and reliable in the test-retest (ICC value of 0·714, P = 0·004). There was no significant correlation between the two-coloured gum test and the wax cubes test. The two-coloured gum mixing ability test was able to adequately assess masticatory function and is recommended for use in a population of elderly persons with dementia.

Masticatory efficiency of implant‐supported removable partial dental prostheses in patients with free fibula flap reconstructed mandibles: A split‐mouth, observational study

“…On the contrary, the two‐colored chewing gum test is easy to perform and is reproducible. The test uses specially designed chewing gum with contrasting colors and has been validated in multiple studies (Schimmel, et al, ; Weijenberg, et al, ). The development of the ViewGum© software has made this test to be applied globally.…”

Psychometric evaluation of the Orofacial Pain Scale for Non‐Verbal Individuals as a screening tool for orofacial pain in people with dementia

“…For the activity “drinking,” cold tap water of 10‐15°C was obtained shortly before drinking. For “chewing,” participants were asked to chew on a standard chewing gum for 1 minute . For “oral hygiene care,” participants were asked to brush their teeth with a standard brush (Oral B, Procter & Gamble, OH, USA).…”

Reliability of a two‐colour chewing gum test to assess masticatory performance in complete denture wearers

“…In this test, a two‐coloured gum is chewed by a certain number of strokes and the chewed gum is classified based on a visual reference scale and also measured by optoelectronic methods . This method correlates significantly with the sieving method for dentate subjects and was recommended as a suitable method for subjects with impaired mastication . The mixing ability was also previously tested in edentulous subjects using two‐coloured paraffin wax specimens, which was also considered to be more appropriate for evaluations of masticatory efficiency in patients with compromised masticatory performance compared to the comminution test using Optocal as test food …”