Abstract

Purpose

Several case studies and anecdotal reports have shown assorted motor and quality of life benefits from use of a dental mouthpiece among people with Parkinson disease (PD). A larger exploratory study is necessary to assess potential efficacy and feasibility of this treatment strategy. If shown to be effective and feasible in a larger sample of people with PD, mechanistic studies may be warranted to examine a potential relationship between orofacial sensory input and motor function in people with PD.

Materials and methods

This study was registered on clinicaltrials.gov (NCT: 04082663). Twenty people with PD, Hoehn and Yahr stages I-III, participated in this study. Each participant completed various baseline motor and quality of life assessments before being fitted with a custom mouthpiece. Motor assessments were completed a second time after 25 min of mouthpiece wear. Participants were asked to wear the mouthpiece for 1 month before completing follow-up quality of life assessments and providing feedback about the mouthpiece. Wilcoxon signed-rank tests were used to compare results across conditions.

Results

Gait velocity and cadence showed significant (p < .05) improvement while wearing the mouthpiece. However, these changes were not significant after correcting for multiple comparisons. Thirteen participants indicated they would be unlikely to continue wearing the mouthpiece.

Conclusions

These results do not provide adequate evidence to pursue further this type of mouthpiece as a treatment strategy for motor signs and symptoms or quality of life in people with PD.

中文翻译：

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用咬嘴治疗帕金森病的体征和症状的试点试验

摘要

目的

一些案例研究和轶事报告表明，帕金森病 (PD) 患者使用牙套可对运动和生活质量产生各种益处。需要进行更大的探索性研究来评估这种治疗策略的潜在功效和可行性。如果在更大的 PD 患者样本中证明是有效和可行的，则可能需要进行机械研究来检查 PD 患者口面部感觉输入与运动功能之间的潜在关系。

材料和方法

该研究已在临床试验网站 (clinicaltrials.gov) 上注册（NCT：04082663）。20 名患有 PD、Hoehn 和 Yahr I-III 期的人参加了这项研究。每个参与者在安装定制咬嘴之前完成了各种基线运动和生活质量评估。在咬嘴佩戴 25 分钟后，第二次完成运动评估。在完成后续生活质量评估并提供有关咬嘴的反馈之前，参与者被要求佩戴咬嘴 1 个月。Wilcoxon 符号秩检验用于比较不同条件下的结果。

结果

 佩戴咬嘴后，步态速度和步频显示出显着改善( p < .05)。但是，经过多重比较校正后，这些变化并不显着。13 名参与者表示他们不太可能继续佩戴吹嘴。

结论

这些结果并没有提供足够的证据来进一步寻求这种类型的咬嘴作为 PD 患者运动体征和症状或生活质量的治疗策略。