Alterations produced in speech due to upper orthodontic restraints - prospective randomizes clinical trial

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate and compare the influence of different upper removable orthodontic retainers on speech and volunteers' perceptions to different conditions caused by their use. To correlate perceptions with each other and with upper arch dimensions. MATERIAL AND METHODS: 21 (n) volunteers were selected to use four types of upper removable retainers (conventional wrap-around, horseshoe-shaped wrap-around, wrap-around with an anterior "hole" and transparent thermoplastic retainer - TTR) for 21 days each, with intervals of 7 days without use between them. During the search, some volunteers dropped out or did not attend the evaluations and were excluded. Patients perceptions (final n=19) were evaluated with a visual analogue scale of 100 mm, and these were correlated with each other. Speech evaluation (final n=18) was performed in vocal excerpts recordings made before, immediately after and 21 days after the installation of each appliance, with Perceptual Auditory Analysis Auditory and Acoustic Analysis of formant frequencies F1 and F2 of the vowels. ANOVA for repeated measures and Friedman test with post hoc Tukey, in addition to Pearson and Spearman correlation for the evaluations were applied for statistics evaluation. The level of statistical significance was set at 5%. RESULTS: Different designs of wrap-around retainers did not differ significantly in any of the perceptions and TTR received significantly worse grades in all aspects, except for esthetics, which did not statistically differ from the others. Significant positive correlations were observed between changes in speech and discomfort on all appliances. Occlusal interference in TTR was very positively correlated to other perceptions, such as changes in speech and discomfort. Speech changes, evaluated by Perceptual Auditory Analysis, increased immediately after conventional wraparound and TTR installation, and reduced after 3 weeks of use, but not back to normal levels observed without device. However, this increase was statistically significant only for the conventional wrap-around and TTR, remaining significant high after 3 weeks. Formant frequencies of vowels were altered at initial time and the changes remained present in conventional, horseshoe-shaped and TTR appliances after 3 weeks. CONCLUSIONS: TTR was more harmful to speech than the wrap-around appliances. Among these, conventional and horseshoe-shaped has interfered less in speech. The 3-week period with retainers was not fully sufficient for speech adaptation. TTR was worse classified than the wrap-around retainers in all evaluated perceptions, except in esthetics, which did not differ significantly. Occlusal coverage of TTR seems to be the cause of its rejection and its major changes to speech. Upper arch dimensions little influence volunteers perceptions. Considering speech changes and volunteers perceptions, the wrap-around retainers had better performance and should be the first choice when retainer option is a removable device in the upper arch.