INDICATORS OF MASTICATORY PERFORMANCE AMONG ELDERLY COMPLETE DENTURE WEARERS

The literature on current techniques for evaluating the masticatory ca pacity leads to categorizing them into two groups: objective masticato ry tests and questionnaires that evaluate the subjective masticatory c apacity, This study examines how a simple questionnaire on the reporte d capacity to chew certain food can predict the masticatory performanc e of edentulous elderly patients, The masticatory performance of 367 c ompletely edentulous elderly persons was measured with the Swallowing Threshold Test Index and compared with their reported masticatory capa city previously measured with a questionnaire on the capacity of the i ndividual to chew nine food items, A total of 47.4% of the individuals had a low masticatory performance, This problem was more frequent in women (51.7%) than in men (41.8%), In measuring the reported masticato ry performance with seven of the nine food items listed in the questio nnaire, this indicator predicted the masticatory performance with a se nsitivity of 65.5% and a specificity of 81.9%. However, even though th e measure of prosthesis retention/stability is related to the masticat ory performance, it was not a good predictor.