The influence of the design of removable dentures on patient's voice quality

The main condition for speech intelligibility is the specific anatomical characteristics of the human speech apparatus and harmonious work of all organs in the human vocal apparatus. The voice quality is characterized by speech intelligibility (relationship between the voice pitch, volume, timbre and speech speed). Improper functional quality (related to retention,support, stability), inappropriate design of the prosthetic base and disposition of artificial teeth are the basic reasons for dyslalia - impairment of utterance with abnormality of external speech organs. In the case of dyslalia a patient may suffer from a defective utterance of separate phonemes. When designing removable dental prostheses, it is important to evaluate the disposition of the artifical teeth (taking into account phonetic pronunciation), make a phonetically beneficial construction of the base of the dentures and restore the lost alveolar bone with the basis of removable prostheses. The aim of this study was to review literature on voice quality and the way it can be affected after the insertion of removable dental prostheses and to research the literature describing the ways how voice quality can be improved. The literature reviewed in the paper was retrieved from Science Direct, PubMed, MD Consult, Cochrane Libary databases and dates back to the period from 1990 to 2012.