Two-colour chewing gum mixing ability: digitalisation and spatial heterogeneity analysis.
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.
Department of Clinical Neuropsychology, VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
R A F
RA
Weijenberg
E J A
EJ
Scherder
C M
CM
Visscher
T
T
Gorissen
E
E
Yoshida
F
F
Lobbezoo
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000465:Algorithms; D002638:Chewing Gum / Q000592:standards*; D003116:Color; D003704:Dementia / Q000150:complications; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008297:Male; D008409:Mastication / Q000502:physiology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D055815:Young Adult
D002638:Chewing Gum
automatic data processing; chewing gum; dementia; mastication; masticatory performance; spatial analysis