154 Chapter 7 subgroups use mouth gels to improve other oral problems such as a burning mouth, and difficulty with mastication and swallowing [31]. The use of dry-mouth interventions was significantly associated with the total XI score and the flow rate of CHSWS and A-SWS. Besides, the use of one or more dry-mouth interventions was significantly associated with all eight intra-oral regions of the RODI questionnaire. UWS was not associated with any dry-mouth intervention. In several groups of patients, it has been shown that UWS flow rate does not have a strong correlation with the severity of their xerostomia [32–34]. It was also found that the RODI scores and salivary flow rates were not correlated [9]. This suggests that advice to a patient for use of dry-mouth interventions should be based on the severity of their oral dryness complaints experienced, not on the UWS salivary flow rate. Nevertheless, health care professionals should still consider the UWS flow rate important, as a severely low secretion rate is a major risk factor for the development of oral health problems like caries, oral discomfort, taste alterations and candidiasis [1, 2, 29]. In almost all patients, the total XI score was strongly associated with the use of almost all dry-mouth interventions. As discussed earlier, the overall dry-mouth experience is an important determining factor for the use of interventions. As almost all these interventions are aimed to relieve dryness of the entire mouth, like the interventions “drinking water”, “rinsing of the mouth”, “eating fruit” and “drinks small volumes”, they have significant associations with the total XI score which represents the overall dry-mouth feeling. On the other hand, specific intra-oral regions of the RODI had an significant association with locally applied interventions. Surprisingly, “using mouth gel” was significantly associated with the RODI scores of the anterior tongue for all patient subgroups. It seems that, the tongue plays an important role in drymouth perception [17], and mouth gels can be easily applied to this intra-oral region. “Moistening the lips” was significant associated with the RODI scores of the upper lip. In this anatomical area, an intervention can easily be applied as well. In summary, the use of dry-mouth interventions was significantly associated with the dry-mouth experience of patients, especially the overall (total XI score) and intra-oral (RODI scores) dry-mouth feeling. Interventions aimed to relieve dryness of the entire mouth, such as “drinking water” and “rinsing of the mouth”, were significantly associated with total XI score, while locally applied interventions (for example “using mouth gel”) were significant associated with dryness of anterior tongue. This finding will help clinicians in advising dry-mouth patients depending on dryness of intra-oral region(s) in
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTk4NDMw