CRITICAL-EVALUATION OF PATIENT RESPONSES TO DENTAL IMPLANT THERAPY

Statement of problem. Successful rehabilitation of the edentulous cond ition requires functional and psychosocial adaptation by the patient. Quality of life is markedly affected by the amount of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with their dental therapy Patient concerns are primari ly related to comfort, function, and esthetics. When these do not meet the patients expectations, anxiety, insecurity, diminished self-estee m, and introversion are typical psychosocial responses. Purpose. The o bjectives of the study were to assess the patient's subjective feeling s about: (a) comfort, (b) function, (c) esthetics, (d) speech, (e) sel f-image, and (f) overall dental health with their existing complete de ntures, and after implant therapy and prosthodontic rehabilitation. Ma terial and methods. Two health-related quality of life (HRQL) question naires were developed to evaluate the effectiveness of dental implant therapy; one dealing with their feelings about their conventional comp lete dentures, and the second dealing with implant therapy. The first questionnaire was administered with supervision before receiving impla nt treatment. The second questionnaire was administered within 1 year after completion of prosthetic rehabilitation. Twenty-six patients who received implants to support a mandibular prosthesis and a new maxill ary denture formed the experimental population. Results. Discriminativ e and evaluative analysis of subjective patient responses provided rel iable, accurate, and reproducible results. Assessment of subject feeli ngs before and after implant therapy and prosthodontic rehabilitation demonstrated significant differences when before treatment responses w ere compared with the responses after therapy. Conclusions. Significan t differences for comfort, function, speech, esthetics, self-image, an d dental health were demonstrated when conventional complete dentures and dental implant therapy were compared. HRQL data provided scientifi c evidence of an improved quality of life after dental implant therapy (p < 0.000).