Rodríguez-Alcalá, LauraMartín-Lagos Martínez, JuanO Connor-Reina, CarlosPlaza, Guillermo2023-02-092023-02-092021-02-18http://hdl.handle.net/10668/17194The study of the muscles of the tongue forms part of a basic evaluation of upper airway function that includes swallowing, speaking and chewing. It is important because the upper airway presents a region of collapse during sleep. Through the action of the dilator muscles, mainly the genioglossus, such collapse can be prevented. In this study, we present a simple tool that can be used to measure the strength of the tongue. This tool may provide an easy way to measure tongue function and allow a simple evaluation of pathologies that affect the tone of the tongue. We have carried out 20 tongue strength measurements using the Tongue Digital Spoon (TDS) in a healthy adult population, using the Iowa Oral Performance Instrument (IOPI) as the gold standard. To validate the procedure, we performed replicate measurements on 20 individuals aged 20-70 years. We found a mean TDS measurement of 115.99 g/cm2 in young subjects, 98.47 g/cm2 in middle-aged subjects and 84.23 g/cm2 in the elderly. There was a significant difference in the measurements between young and elderly participants. There was also a significant correlation between TDS and IOPI measurements (Pearson correlation coefficient, r = 0.69, PenAttribution 4.0 Internationalhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/AdultAgedFemaleHealthy VolunteersHumansMaleMiddle AgedMuscle StrengthPilot ProjectsPressureTongueYoung Adultresearch article33600465open access10.1371/journal.pone.02459011932-6203PMC7891707https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0245901&type=printablehttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7891707/pdf