OroPress a New Wireless Tool for Measuring Oro-lingual Pressures: a Pilot Study in Healthy Adults

Background: Commercially available tools for measuring oro-lingual pressures during swallowing or isometric (tongue 'pushing') tasks have either poor, or unknown, psychometric properties (stability, reliability) which means their validity in a clinical setting is unknown. A new wireless tool, OroPress, has been designed to address the shortcomings of existing devices. In this pilot cohort study of normal adults (i.e., people without dysphagia), the face validity of OroPress was examined when it was used to measure oro-lingual pressures during (i) isometric tongue strength (ITS) tasks and (ii) isometric tongue endurance (ITE) tasks. The effects of gender on isometric oro-lingual data, captured using OroPress, were compared to published oro-lingual pressure data recorded using either the Kay Swallowing Workstation or the Iowa Oral Performance Instrument (aka commercial tools).

Methods: Thirty five adults (17 males, 18 females), were purposefully recruited at the University of Limerick (UL), Ireland. They attended one session at the university-based clinic where their oro-lingual pressures were recorded while undertaking two isometric tasks by speech and language therapy student clinicians. OroPress was used to capture tongue strength and tongue endurance pressures during two trials of each condition and data were downloaded and analysed post-hoc. An independent-samples t-test and an ANOVA were used to examine the effect of gender on ITS pressures (as data were normally distributed) and an independent-samples t-test was used for the effect of gender on ITE pressures (where data were not normally distributed).

Results: OroPress is a portable tool that was reported as being 'easy to use' by student SLT clinicians. The intra-oral sensor was reportedly comfortable and 'felt non-invasive' for participants. Data from 34 participants (16 males, 18 females) are reported. Males did not demonstrate significantly higher mean ITS pressures than females (P = 0.057), although this approached significance, and there was no gender effect for ITE oro-lingual pressure. These results were consistent with published data from studies where other tools have been used to measure ITS pressures.

Conclusions: Preliminary face validity of OroPress as a tool for recording isometric oro-lingual pressures was supported. This new wireless tool shows promise for being a criterion standard for recording oro-lingual pressures during isometric tasks.