Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of maxillary dentures on nasalance values in normal elderly individuals.
Design: A three-factor within-subjects experimental design was employed to analyze the nasalance scores obtained.
Participants: Twenty English-speaking women aged 61 to 81 years, who wore complete maxillary dentures, participated in the study.
Intervention: A Nasometer was used to collect nasalance data. Participants read three standard passages aloud, three times each, in two conditions: with and without their maxillary dentures.
Results: Results revealed that nasalance values were significantly lower with the maxillary dentures removed (p<.01), although the difference in nasalance between the two denture conditions averaged no more than 2%. Nasalance scores obtained both with and without maxillary dentures fell within one standard deviation of the mean for a reference group of comparably aged English-speaking women.
Conclusions: The results suggest that the existing collection of normal reference data for nasalance may be safely used for elderly individuals regardless of their status with respect to natural or prosthetic maxillary dentition.