Principal Component Analysis of Internal Tongue Motion in Normal and Glossectomy Patients with Primary Closure and Free Flap

This study examines the motion patterns of the midsagittal section of the tongue during elevation of the tongue body. The motion from /u/ to /k/ is a very small one. Therefore, glossectomy patients who can make a /u/ should be able to make a /k/. However, because of the altered anatomy it appears that their execution of this gesture differs from the normal speaker due to scar accommodation and motion of the flap. The word "a souk" or “disouk” was spoken by six normal speakers, and five postglossectomy patients with T1 or T2 tumors, N0M0; four with primary closure and one with radial forearm free flap. All patients produced a normal sounding /k/. The goal of this work was to quantitatively characterize any motion differences between the normal and patient speakers.