Materials and Methods: Gait analysis was performed in nineteen edentulous volunteers (five men and ten women, 63 to 82y old, mean age 73.0y) who have been treated at the dental hospital of Tokyo Medical and Dental University for new complete dentures and volunteered to participate in this study. 10 meters of steady walking was recorded with a telemetric measuring device and a speedometer. The measurements were randomly carried out three times each when wearing and not wearing dentures. A paired t test was performed to compare the gate cycle, gate velocity, stride length, and the coefficient variation for the gate cycle with and without dentures with a 0.05 level of significance.
Results: When wearing dentures, the gait cycle was significantly reduced compared to that when not wearing dentures (p=0.0015). The gait velocity and stride length significantly increased when wearing dentures (p=0.0007 and p=0.0015, respectively). The coefficient variation of the gait cycle significantly decreased when wearing dentures (p=0.0041), demonstrating that when wearing denture, the walking rhythm became more stable.
Conclusion: Gait analysis was performed with nineteen edentulous patients to detect an influence of wearing complete dentures to body equilibrium. 1) The gait cycle was stabilized and reduced when wearing dentures. 2) The stride length and the gait velocity were increased when wearing dentures. It was suggested that body equilibrium of edentulous elderly may be maintained well by wearing complete dentures.