• Journal of the Korean Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons
• /
• v.27 no.6
• /
• pp.526-534
• /
• 2001

Purpose : The objective of this study is to ascertain whether the positive exists among the frenum length, the tongue movement and the speech and to present the normal range of tongue movement and guidelines for the choice of surgery, observation if necessary. Materials and Methods : 180 patients were evaluated. We divided 180 patients into 6 group by age. Each group was separated as follows; the age of 2.5-4, 5-6, 7-9, 10-12, 16-18. We measured the frenal length, the range of tongue motion and evaluated the speech so that we really questioned about the positive relationship between the tongue-tie and speech. We let the patient exercise the protrusive both(right, left) laterotrusive superior movement of the tongue. During these movements, we measured the distance between the vermilion border and the tongue tip. We also measured the distance from the tongue tip to the point contacting the upper lip with dorsum of the tongue during the maximal protrusive movement of the tongue. Three linear measurement of the anterior, inferior segment of the tongue including the lingual frenum, are made. These measurements are as follows: 1. Distance A. Free anterior portion of the tongue from the point of frenular insertion to the tongue tip. 2. Distance B. The distance from the initiating point of the lingual frenum to the point connecting the two sublingual carundcles to the lingual frenum perpendicularly. 3. Distance C. The distance from the point contacting the line crossing the sublingual caruncles with the lingual frenum to the terminating point of the lingual frenum. We transform three linear measures into a statistical ratio, A/(A-B+C), representing the length of the free portion of the tongue compared with the total sublingual dimensions. In addition, we assessed the speech through Picture Consonant Articulation Test(PCAT) and tried to find out the relationship between the length of the lingual frenum and speech. Conclusion : As people are born, they have small and restricted tongue. As people grow old, tongue motions are more liberate, and unrestricted and they can speak so freely. Therefore we suggest that until age 5, oral and maxillofacial surgeons postpone the surgery if not urgent, evaluate the maximal lingual motions and PCAT according to this article and observe their changes.

• Korean Journal of Oriental Medicine
• /
• v.13 no.3
• /
• pp.119-124
• /
• 2007

Introduction: In Oriental medicine, the status of tongue is the important indicator to diagnose one's health, because it represents physiological and clinicopathological changes of inner parts of the body. The method of tongue diagnosis is not only convenient but also non-invasive, so tongue diagnosis is most widely used in Oriental medicine. By the way, since tongue diagnosis is affected by examination circumstances a lot, its performance depends on a light source, degrees of an angle, a medical doctor's condition etc. Therefore, it is not easy to make an objective and standardized tongue diagnosis. In order to solve this problem, in this study, we tried to design a discriminant function for thick and thin coating with color vectors of preprocessed image. Method: 52 subjects, who were diagnosed as white-coated tongue, were involved. Among them, 45 subjects diagnosed as thin coating and 7 subjects diagnosed as thick coating by oriental medical doctors, and then their tongue images were obtained from a digital tongue diagnosis system. Using those acquired tongue images, we implemented two steps: Preprocessing and image analyzing. The preprocessing part of this method includes histogram equalization and histogram stretching at each color component, especially, intensity and saturation. It makes the difference between tongue substance and tongue coating was more visible, so that we can separate tongue coating easily. Next part, we analyzed the characteristic of color values and found the threshold to divide tongue area into coating area. Then, from tongue coating image, it is possible to extract the variables that were important to classify thick and thin coating. Result : By statistical analysis, two significant vectors, associated with G, were found, which were able to describe the difference between thick and thin coating very well. Using these two variables, we designed the discriminant function for coating classification and examined its performance. As a result, the overall accuracy of thick and thin coating classification was 92.3%. Discussion : From the result, we can expect that the discriminant function is applicable to other coatings in a similar way. Also, it can be used to make an objective and standardized diagnosis.

• Journal of dental hygiene science
• /
• v.23 no.4
• /
• pp.320-329
• /
• 2023

Background: Oral frailty has garnered considerable interest following its identification as a risk factor for physical frailty. The Korean oral frailty diagnosis criteria have emphasized the need for extensive research on oral frailty diagnostic items and interventions. Our study performed an in-depth analysis of the tongue-palate pressure patterns in healthy community-dwelling older adults. Methods: Of the 217 older adults aged ≥60 years who visited a senior center in Wonju, 205 participants who completed tongue pressure measurement were included in the final analysis. Pressure changes over time were recorded by instructing the participants to press their tongue against the hard palate with for 7 seconds per cycle. The participants were divided into the normal and abnormal tongue pressure (NTP and ATP, respectively) groups based on whether they achieved the target tongue pressure at least once; tongue pressure patterns were compared between the groups. Furthermore, the average time taken to achieve the standard tongue pressure value was calculated for the participants in the NTP group and used to evaluate the decrease in tongue pressure in the ATP group. Results: Among the 205 participants, 40.5% had ATP. The tongue pressure graph revealed a gentle and consistent incline that was maintained even after achieving standard tongue pressure in the NTP group. The graph was more extreme in the ATP group, and the changes in the pressure type varied across individuals; the tongue pressure was only 48.4%, 40.7%, 31.9%, and 22.6% of the NTP in the participants in their 60s, 70s, 80s, and ≥90s, respectively (p<0.05). Conclusion: Tongue pressure weakness was observed in 40.5% of the healthy community-dwelling older adults. Furthermore, ATP graphs were observed in the patients with tongue pressure weakness. Thus, activities improving the oral function in community-dwelling older adults and systematic oral rehabilitation programs should be devised to promote normal swallowing.

• Journal of Sasang Constitutional Medicine
• /
• v.27 no.4
• /
• pp.379-387
• /
• 2015

Objectives The purpose of this study was to investigate the relevance of Sasang constitution, Qi Blood pattern identification, and tongue diagnosis in subjects complaining of fatigue.Methods Seventy-three subjects who complained of fatigue were assessed using the Chalder Fatigue Scale, tongue diagnosis, pattern identification questionnaire and Sasang constitution diagnosis. The association of tongue diagnosis with Qi Blood pattern identification and Sasang constitution was evaluated.Results 1. There was no significant association between tongue diagnosis and Sasang constitution.2. Tongue color, which is one of the diagnostic indicators in tongue diagnosis, was redder in the Qi stagnation group than in the Qi deficiency and Blood deficiency groups.Conclusions Tongue diagnosis can be utilized in future if proper research regarding Sasang constitution and Sasang constitution pattern identification is conducted.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine
• /
• v.40 no.2
• /
• pp.63-71
• /
• 2019

Objectives: The purpose of this study is to compare and analyze Tongue Diagnosis of Korean medicine with that of Ayurveda. Methods: In this article, first we introduced concept of Tongue Diagnosis based on physiological view. Further, we also reviewed published works including books and articles. Then, we reviewed Ayurveda to find similar concepts to Vicera Assignment on Tongue, and analyzed the comparison between the relevant contents of Korean medicine and Ayurveda. Results: In Ayurveda, they divided vicera into two part (right and left) and some elements of vicera were assigned to either side of divided tongue. In Korean medicine, a tongue is divide into three parts of Sangcho(上焦, Shang Jiao), Jungcho(中焦, Zhong Jiao) and Hacho(下焦, Xia Jaio) ; similarly, in Ayurveda, they divide a tongue into three regions of VATA, PITTA, KAPHA. Conclusion: It can be inferred from the relationship between portions of a tongue and vicera of a body that Korean medicine and Ayurveda have a close relationship.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
• /
• v.13 no.2
• /
• pp.945-961
• /
• 2019

Tongue diagnosis is one of the most important diagnostic methods in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). Tongue image segmentation aims to extract the image object (i.e., tongue body), which plays a key role in the process of manufacturing an automated tongue diagnosis system. It is still challenging, because there exists the personal diversity in tongue appearances such as size, shape, and color. This paper proposes an innovative segmentation method that uses image thresholding, gray projection and active contour model (ACM). Specifically, an initial object region is first extracted by performing image thresholding in HSI (i.e., Hue Saturation Intensity) color space, and subsequent morphological operations. Then, a gray projection technique is used to determine the upper bound of the tongue body root for refining the initial object region. Finally, the contour of the refined object region is smoothed by ACM. Experimental results on a dataset composed of 100 color tongue images showed that the proposed method obtained more accurate segmentation results than other available state-of-the-art methods.

• The Journal of the Institute of Internet, Broadcasting and Communication
• /
• v.12 no.4
• /
• pp.181-188
• /
• 2012

An effective extraction method for extracting a coated tongue is proposed in this paper, which is used as the diagnostic criteria in the tongue diagnosis. Proposed method uses the fluorescence response characteristics of the coated tongue that is occurred by using the ultraviolet light. Specially, this method can solved the previous problems including the issue in the limits of the diagnosis environment and in the objectivity of the diagnosis results. In our method, original tongue image is acquired by using the ultraviolet light, and binarization is performed by thresholding a valley-points in the histogram that corresponds to the color difference of tongue body and tongue coating. Final view image is presented to the oriental doctor, after applying the canny-edge algorithm to the binary image, and edge image is added to the original image. In order to evaluate the performance of the our proposed method, after building a various tongue image, we compared the true region of coated tongue by the oriental doctor's hand with the extracted region by the our method. As a result, the proposed method showed the average 87.87% extraction ratio. The shape of the extracted coated tongue region showed also significantly higher similarity.

• The Journal of the Society of Korean Medicine Diagnostics
• /
• v.13 no.2
• /
• pp.24-33
• /
• 2009

Objectives : This study was aimed to clarify the relationship between the tongue diagnosis of dampness-phlegm and hyperlipidemia in acute stroke patients. Methods : We analyzed the data of 1405 patients with acute stroke in 10 oriental medical hospitals from November 2006 to December 2008. We classified patients into two groups, dampness-phlegm and non dampness-phlegm by tongue diagnosis such as the white coating of the tongue, thick coating of the tongue, swollen tongue and teeth printed tongue which is oriental medical diagnosis. And We analyzed their characteristics with type of stroke and lipid blood level. Results : 1. There was no significant difference of stroke type between the dampness-phlegm tongue diagnosis group and the non dampness-phlegm tongue diagnosis group. 2. The ratio of SVO was higher in dampness-phlegm tongue diagnosis group (76.06%) than the non dampness-phlegm tongue diagnosis group (61.26%). 3. According to the blood test, the dampness-phlegm tongue diagnosis group showed higher in total cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, LDL cholesterol and triglyceride than the control group. 4. Total cholesterol and HDL cholesterol were significant higher in dampness-phlegm tongue diagnosis than the control group. Conclusion : According to the analysis, the relationship between the tongue diagnosis of dampness-phlegm and hyperlipidemia in acute stroke patients were more clarified. Based on these results, more prospective studies are to be done with more clinical data.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology and Dermatology
• /
• v.12 no.2
• /
• pp.212-221
• /
• 1999

Tongue examination is the most unique and important diagnostic method of oriental medicine. It reveals patients condition and give some information about direction of therapy and background of disease as well as produces clue of duration of disease changing that grasps it from outside. The aims of this study show that results of tongue examination is related to somewhat special pattern. we study 27 patients(age of means: 63.01 years old, male: 14, female: 13) who come to Wonkwang University Oriental-Medicine Hospital at Chonju with diabetes mellitus or diabetes mellitus complications. Tongue colors of this study result in pale-red 8 cases, pale 6 cases, red 6 cases, crimson 5 cases, blue-green-purple 2 cases and tongue fur of this study result in white-fur 16 cases, yellow-fur 7 cases, black-fur 1 case, none-fur 3 cases. And the condition of tongue fur with grimy and thin result in thin-white-fur 12 cases, white-grimy-fur 4 cases, thin-yellow-fur 5 cases, grimy-yellow-fur 2 cases, black-fur 1 case. Means level of fasting glucose during 7 days was $223.24{\pm}32.l7mg/dl$ and postprandial 2hours was $286.37{\pm}24.54mg/dl$ There were no changes in tongue body and tongue color but changes occur in tongue fur with 9cases in this period. 5 cases of patient make a difference between FBS(fasting blood glucose) and postprandial blood glucose level more than l00mg/dl (2 cases of patient with thin-white-fur gradually turned to slight-yellow-fur. There were no changes in 2 cases of patient with crimson-none-fur and pale-white-fur. 1 case of patient with slimy-yellow-fur turned to black fur.) 11 cases of patient had lesser than $10\%$ hemoglobin $A_lC$ and tongue color of these patient were pale-red 5cases, pale 2 cases, red 2 cases, crimson 2 cases. 16 cases of patient had more than $10\%$ Hemoglobin $A_1C$ and tongue color of these patients were pale-red 3 cases, pale 4 cases, red 4 cases, crimson 3 cases, blue 2 cases. This result shows that quantity of Hemoglobin $A_1C$ make a somewhat role in tongue color. The above results show that tongue color, fur color, condition and change of fur in diabetes mellitus patients is various in pale-red, pale, crimson, none-fur. So it is difficult to give an exact diagnosis on pathology of diabetes mellitus only with tongue examination because there are a little matches between blood glucose level, prevalence-period, short-term blood glucose regulation and tongue and fur colors.

• The Journal of Korea Assosiation for Disability and Oral Health
• /
• v.6 no.2
• /
• pp.116-119
• /
• 2010

Trauma to the lips and tongue can occur by accidental self-biting after dental treatment. After local anesthesia, it is likely that the patient may feel painless even in biting the tongue. In case of young children and disabled patients, the dentists should be careful not to bite the tongue. In this report, we present a case of deep lingual laceration due to biting the tongue in the course of dental treatment under general anesthesia. A 33 year-old male was transferred to our hospital to treat tongue laceration. Before 2 hour on arrival, he had received dental care under general anesthesia at a dental hospital for the disabled because of cooperation difficulty and cerebral palsy. During recovery from general anesthesia, he tried to bite his own tongue involuntary. The doctors and nurses tried to prevent the patient from being injured. Despite these efforts, massive bleeding occurred from the injured sites of the tongue. Because we could not communicate with him, we decided to evaluate the extent of the injury and treat the injured sites under general anesthesia. The laceration wound was sutured for nearly 1 hr general anesthesia. During recovery we inserted mouth prop into the oral cavity to prevent further injuries from tongue biting. After full recovery from general anesthesia he didn't try to bite his tongue. After 4 hour admission, he was discharged without other complications.