"Combination Syndrome" in an Upper/Lower Implant Overdenture Patient: A Clinical Report.

An upper/lower overdenture case, which presented with clinical entities commonly associated with the combination syndrome, is described. To the author's knowledge, this is the first documented case to illustrate such a particular association. The patient presented with an upper overdenture on 4 individual implants with attachments, without palatal coverage, opposing a lower bar overdenture on 4 implants, delivered more than 10 years before presentation. The patient complained about esthetics (poor display of upper teeth, excessive showing of lower teeth, and occlusal plane cant) and chewing. The anterior maxilla had severe bone loss, whereas the anterior mandible had a large amount of bone. Our retreatment included an upper overdenture with palatal coverage and a lower overdenture, both prostheses supported by individually attached implants. The article describes in detail the reasoning behind chosen retreatment, along with limitations and compromises.

Electromyographic evaluation of masticatory muscles in dentate patients versus conventional and implant-supported fixed and removable denture wearers- a preliminary report comparing model foods.

PURPOSE: To evaluate differences in masticatory muscle function during chewing of model foods designed to differ in fracture strength between dentate subjects (n = 5, ages 59 to 68 years) versus patients treated with a maxillary conventional complete denture opposing natural dentition or one of the following types of mandibular complete dentures: conventional, implant-supported overdenture, implant-supported fixed denture (n = 20, ages 45 to 83 years). The authors hypothesized that denture wearers would differ in duration of chewing, frequency of chewing, and masticatory muscle activity while preparing a bolus for swallowing. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Surface electromyography was recorded bilaterally from the masseter, anterior temporalis, and anterior digastric. Masticatory muscle activity was evaluated using scaled values of the area under the electromyographic curve, while subjects chewed agar-based model foods with different fracture strengths. Chewing duration and frequency also were calculated from electromyographic recordings. Mixed model analysis of variance with "subject" as a random factor was used during statistical analysis. Logarithmic transformation was required to achieve normalization of residuals for the duration of chewing and the relative masticatory muscles activity, but not for the chewing frequency. RESULTS: Relative masticatory muscle activity was 2.57 times higher for the denture wearers than for the dentate subjects during chewing of model foods (P < .0001). The reduction in masticatory muscle activity from the 1st to the 10th chewing cycle was proportionally less in magnitude and occurred more gradually for denture wearers compared to dentate subjects. While chewing sequence duration increased with food fracture strength, it did not differ significantly in treatment versus dentate groups. Chewing cycle frequency did not differ between groups or with food fracture strength. CONCLUSIONS: The observed increases in relative masticatory muscle activity for denture wearers compared to the dentate subjects during oral food processing likely reflect supplemental mechanical efforts to accommodate the use of dentures for preparing a bolus for swallowing.