Exploring Relationships between Chewing and Well-being: Design of a Remote Chewing Assessment System.

Background: Chewing difficulties are associated with poor mental and physical well-being. Assessments of chewing are typically single lab-based measures requiring specialist equipment (e.g. wet sieving) and provide insight into one facet of chewing (e.g. breaking down or manipulating food). A more holistic approach, combining a range of objective and subjective chewing measures, and factors indirectly related to chewing ability (e.g., pain and fatigue), would allow earlier targeted interventions and better treatment outcomes. We introduce designs for a remote healthcare system to achieve this.
Aims: Aims are two-fold: i) Investigate relationships between various chewing measures, pain, fatigue, and wellbeing (including analysis of pain and fatigue as potential mediators), ii) Propose the design for a remote system to
holistically assess chewing ability.
Method: 150 participants will complete a lab-based carrot chewing (particle size) and gum mixing (manipulation) tasks and self-report measures of subjective chewing ability, pain, fatigue, and well-being.
Proposed analysis: Multiple regressions will assess if chewing measures, pain and fatigue predict well-being. Mediation analysis will explore influence of pain and fatigue on relationships between chewing and well-being.
Expected results: It is anticipated that lower chewing ability, higher pain, and higher fatigue will be associated with poorer well-being (i.e., higher depression, anxiety, and stress). It is also expected that pain and fatigue will mediate
relationships between chewing scores and well-being.
Current work stage: Collection of pilot data for chewing tasks.
Discussion: Findings will help inform the development of a remote system to assess chewing ability and identify targets for tailored intervention.