Background: Patients who wear mandibular dentures and hold their tongues in retracted positions alter the dimensions of the sublingual space and disrupt the peripheral seal that is needed for optimal denture retention. The authors studied whether retention could be improved if patients moved their tongues from a retracted resting position to an ideal resting position.
Methods: The authors observed and classified the mandibular residual ridge morphologies of 85 participants who wore complete dentures. The authors recorded and compared the retention of the mandibular denture before and after repositioning the tongue to the ideal resting position.
Results: When the participants' tongues were in a retracted resting position, the average retention of the mandibular denture was 75.38 gram weight (+/- 81.83 standard deviation [SD]). After participants repositioned their tongues to the ideal resting position, the average retention of the mandibular denture was 118.89 gw (+/- 93.00 SD), an increase of 57.73 percent.
Conclusions: In all morphological classes, when participants held their tongues in the ideal resting position, the average mandibular denture retention increased by 57.73 percent, a statistically significant improvement compared with when participants held their tongues in a retracted resting position.
Clinical implications: Clinicians are encouraged to evaluate carefully the tongue resting position in all patients who wear dentures, help create reasonable therapeutic expectations by informing patients about the significant effect that tongue position will have on future denture retention and provide helpful neuromuscular training for patients with retracted-tongue habits.