Masticatory ability and the component ratio of natural-artificial-functional teeth in the community elderly person

虽然老年人的咀嚼能力取决于恒牙的数量，但在日常生活中，人工修复如假牙可用于恢复失去的咀嚼功能。本研究旨在探讨咀嚼能力与功能牙数量的关系（天然牙和人工牙）进行了评价的功能牙齿三角形地图的方法由作者cleared。在这项研究中，我使用了三个调查数据集，即纵向跨学科研究老龄化的东京都老年学研究所，日本大学信息网络中心研究项目的全国性纵向调查和对居住在东京孤岛上的老年人的身体能力的调查。使用这些数据集，我把所有老年人分组的基础上，他们的性别和咀嚼能力。结果显示，在咀嚼能力高的咀嚼能力5组中，有20颗以上天然牙的人数是准确的。此外，包括全口义齿在内的25颗以上功能牙的人数较多，比例较高，全口义齿等修复体对提高咀嚼能力是有益的（咀嚼能力不足），其中人数不到所有受试者的10%，尽管通过戴假牙几乎恢复了功能性牙齿的数量，没有获得充分的功能恢复。女性咀嚼能力低下的比例高于男性，这可能与咀嚼肌肌力较弱有关。通过本研究，笔者坚信功能性牙三角图新方法对社区老年人口腔健康水平的评价是非常有用的。

Although masticatory ability depends on the number of permanent teeth in elderly persons, artificial prostheses such as dentures are used for restoring lost masticatory function in their daily life. In this study, the relationships between masticatory ability and the number of functional teeth (both natural and artificial teeth) were evaluated by means of a functional tooth triangle map method cleated by the author.In this study, I used three survey data sets those were the Longitudinal Interdisciplinary Study on Aging of Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology, a longitudinal nationwide investigation of Nihon University Center for Information Networking research project and the survey of physical ability of elderly people living in isolated islands in Tokyo. Using such data sets, I classified all elderly person into groups based on their gender and masticatory ability. Then each person was plotted on a functional tooth triangle map, and the distribution was investigated.As a result, in the masticatory ability 5 group with high masticatory ability, exact number of people had more than 20 natural teeth. Furthermore, larger number of people had more than 25 functional teeth including full dentures, showing high rates, and prostheses such as full dentures were useful for improving masticatory ability.In the masticatory ability 1 group (insufficient masticatory ability), in which the number of persons was less than 10 % of all the subjects, although the number of functional teeth was almost restored by wearing dentures, no sufficient functional recovery was obtained. The rate of persons with low masticatory ability was higher in females than in males, which may be due to the weakness of masticatory muscular force.Through this study, I believe firmly that the new method of functional tooth triangle map is very useful for evaluate community dental health level for elderly people.