Evaluation of a modular palatal lift pro

1 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 Evaluation of a modular palatal lift prosthesis with a silicone velar lamina for hypernasal patients Brett W Ayliffe, DDS, MSc,a Tim Bressmann, PhD,b Majd Al Mardini, DDS,c and Asbjørn Jokstad, DDS, PhDd Faculty of Dentistry, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada; Department of Speech-Language Pathology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada; Princess Margaret Hospital, Toronto, Canada; Faculty of Health Sciences, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway Q2 Statement of problem Speech bulbs and palatal lift prostheses are used to improve oral-nasal balance in speakers with hypernasality resulting from velopharyngeal dysfunction Fabricating such speech prostheses is often a protracted process, and the nasopharyngeal impression can be uncomfortable for the client Purpose The purpose of this study was to develop and test a modular palatal lift prosthesis with a silicone velar lamina that can be fabricated without a nasopharyngeal impression Material and methods Six adult participants with different etiologies were treated with both a conventional palatal lift prosthesis and the new prosthesis The outcome measures were nasalance scores, speech acceptability ratings, and participant responses on a questionnaire Inferential statistical analyses were conducted with nonparametric Friedman tests and 2-tailed paired Wilcoxon signed ranks tests The probability was set at P