Cognitive Changes and Neural Correlates After Rehabilitation of Masticatory Function in Elderly -an Intervention Study

Today in elderly tooth loss and loss of oral function is widespread, but it is an underexplored modifiable risk factor potentially contributing to the development of dementia. In this interventional study a "cause-effect" relationship between mastication and cognition in humans will be investigated. A total of eighty (80) participants, 65-80 years of age, indicated for prosthodontic rehabilitation will be randomly assigned to either the experimental or the control group. Participants will be randomized into two different groups, measurements are going to be conducted before and after prosthetic rehabilitation. The difference between the two groups is that the control group are going to do two measurements before undergoing the rehabilitation, this to control for the test-re-test effect. The aim with this study is to determine if the rehabilitation of chewing function will cause changes in the neurocognitive assessments of episodic memory and learning.

NCT Number	NCT04458207
Lead Sponsor	Folktandvården Stockholms län AB Collaborators: Karolinska Institutet, Eastmaninstitutet
Conditions	Chewing Problem, Cognitive Decline, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Degenerative; Dementia, Mastication Disorder, Neurocognitive Dysfunction
Enrollment	80 participants
Start Date	2018-11-02
Primary Completion	2026-12-30 (estimated)
Study Completion	2030-12-30 (estimated)
Updated on ClinicalTrials.gov	2026-05-08