Correlation between chewing muscle strength and tongue strength in children with adenoid hypertrophy

To investigate the correlation between chewing muscle strength and tongue strength and also a correlation between chewing muscle forces in children with adenoids hypertrophy before adenotomy and compare results with a control group. The research took place at the Latvian Children's Hearing. A total of 68 children aged 3-7 years participated in the study. Research group - 34 children with confirmed adenoid hypertrophy prior to adenotomy and control group 34 children without diagnosed adenoid hypertrophy. To measure tongue strength and chewing muscle strength an instrument Myoscenner was used. Tongue strength measurements showed that in the study group 88% (n= 29) cases, the tongue strength is reduced compared to the control group by 29% (n= 10). In the study group 56% (n=19) of children showed reduced right side chewing muscle strength compared to 6% (n=2) in the control group. Also the left side chewing muscle strength in the control group was reduced in 79% (n=27) of all cases. In all cases, all participants in the control group reported results within the normal ranges. In the control group statistically significant (p>0.01) negative correlation between tongue strength and left chewing muscle strength indicators. Mutually statistically significant in the study group (p>0.01) , the forces of both chewing muscles are also strongly correlated, where the correlation coefficient was .586.There was statistically significant (p>0.01) strong correlation between right and left chewing muscle strength with a correlation coefficient .716. The obtained results showed that children with adenoid hypertrophy have reduced tongue and chewing muscle strength compared to control group. Data on a moderate- negative, but statistically significant correlation between the tongue strength and left side chewing muscle strengthen a research group were obtained.