Mastication

The Surgeon General reports, “Oral health means much more than healthy teeth.” Teeth are such an important tool to not only eating but the first step of the digestive process. With that said, teeth isn’t the only thing to take care of in the mouth, there are many more steps to be taken to have good oral health besides brushing teeth. Healthy teeth are a good start to oral health but it isn’t everything. As many may already know as people age their oral health declines. People can alter this…

Important Pathways to recognize prior to understanding clinical complications and scenarios: Lingual Nerve Pathway: CNV3 → Lingual Nerve (+Chorda Tympani from Facial Nerve) →Submandibular Ganglion Inferior Alveolar Nerve Pathway: CNV3 Mandibular Nerve → Inferior Alveolar Nerve →Inferior Dental Nerves → Mental Nerve (+ Nerve to Mylohyoid) Lingual Artery Pathway: External Carotid Artery→ Lingual Artery → Sublingual Artery, Deep Lingual Artery, Dorsal Lingual Artery Inferior Alveolar Artery…

2.1 Mechanical Digestion Mechanical digestion is the act of breaking down food into smaller pieces so that it can be processed more easily by the digestive system, an example of this is mastication (chewing), the stomach also carries out some mechanical digestion using muscular contractions to break down food. 2.2 Chemical Digestion Chemical digestion is the break down of food particles through chemical reactions, this also begins in the mouth…

Saliva is important for speech, oral health, mastication, taste and swallowing of food (Ho, Lin, Ann, Chu, & Yen, 2011; Humphrey & Williamson, 2001). Tumors of the parotid gland are rare, accounting for less than 1% of all cancers (Al-Mamgani et al., 2012b; Chung et al., 2013 ) and 3% of HNC (Nutting…

food is swallowed and does not start back up for about five minutes; this time is crucial. PH levels fall and teeth become endangered. “Saliva is normally secreted continuously at about five hundred milliliters per day but can be stimulated by mastication. Chewing a sugar free gum can increase the initial salivary flow rate by a factor of ten” (citation.) The most efficient time to chew gum would be about twenty minutes after a meal –around the time plaque forms (American dental Assoc.) Saliva…

Nutritional requirement in Old Age / Geriatric Nutrition Human biological growth and decline extent over the entire life span. Throughout life all experiences make their imprint on individual genetic heritage. The general process of senescence affects all older adults. Although the biological changes in aging are general, each person is unique and people show a wide variety of individual responses individuals’ age at different rates and in different ways, depending on their genetic heritage heir…