Correlation between findings of the oral myofunctional clinical assessment, pressure and electromyographic activity of the tongue during swallowing in individuals with different orofacial myofunctional disorders.
Robson Rodrigues, Fernanda Chiarion Sassi, Amanda Pagliotto da Silva and 1 others
PMID 37820097WHAT IT FOUND
Tongue pressure correlated weakly with clinical myofunctional scores and facial measurements in 44 patients with mixed orofacial disorders.
No strong link emerged between pressure and electromyographic swallowing timing or volume, so these tools measure different aspects of function.
Key findings
01Tongue dorsum pressure showed significant but weak correlations with lower face length, horizontal and vertical overlap, and OMES-E appearance, posture, and function scores.
02Tongue pressure did not significantly correlate with electromyographic measures of deglutition time or number of peaks for saliva or water volumes.
03The study included a heterogeneous group of patients with facial paralysis, cleft lip and palate, facial trauma, OSAHS, dysphagia, and orthognathic surgery history.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Small sample size (n=44) with heterogeneous pathologies, limiting generalizability. No control group was included. The PLL Pró-Fono device measures mean pressure over five seconds rather than maximum peak pressure, preventing comparison with other studies. The air bulb used for pressure measurement was too large for some patients, causing nausea and potentially affecting data quality. All significant correlations found were weak, suggesting limited clinical utility of these specific relationships.
Declared interests
No conflicts of interest or funding sources are explicitly stated in the provided text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret the weak correlations between tongue pressure and clinical scores as evidence that pressure measurement can replace or reliably predict other assessments. The lack of correlation with electromyographic swallowing data indicates these tools capture distinct physiological aspects.