Effect of Soft Liner Female Housings Retaining Mandibular Two Implant-Supported Overdentures on Hand Grip Strength and Patient Satisfaction in Egyptian Males

Introduction: Loss of natural teeth could make food consumption very difficult and leads
to malnutrition that is associated with muscle wasting. It is well known that implant-supported
mandibular overdentures increase the functional outcome, masticatory performance, nutritional
status and patient’s satisfaction compared with conventional complete dentures. The study aimed
to evaluate the satisfaction and hand grip strength (HGS) for patients treated with two implantsupported
mandibular overdentures retained by soft liner female housings with either bar or ball
attachments and opposed by maxillary conventional dentures.
Materials and Methods: Twenty-one completely edentulous Egyptian males were selected
with a mean age of 59.4 years and ranged between 53 and 67 years. Patients were allocated
randomly into two groups: Group A (n=12) patients received Hader bar design connecting both
implants in a straight line with soft liner female housing to retain the overdentures. Group B
(n=9) patients received two ball patrices with soft liner female receptacles to retain the implant
overdentures. Patient satisfaction was measured by using 100 mm VA S questionnaire and Hand
grip strength (HGS) was recorded by using handheld JAMAR dynamometer. Patients were recalled
for measurements at baseline with conventional dentures before implant placement (T0) and then
6 months (T6) and 12 months (T12) after overdenture insertion. All statistical tests were 2-tailed at
the 5% level of significance.
Results: From the pairwise statistical analysis, it was noticed that significant satisfaction VAS
values for bar group were higher in comparison to ball group in relation to retention and stability.
Bar group revealed significantly higher HGS values from the baseline, while, Ball group exhibited
no significant differences between times of observation.
Conclusion: Overdentures retained by soft liner around Hader bars splinting two implants may
be beneficial for edentulous patients with impaired nutritional status manifested by weak hand grip.