Clinical evaluation of conservative therapy on 300 cases of temporomandibular joint dysfunction

• Published in: Journal of the Japanese Society for the Temporomandibular Joint Vol. 5; no. 1; pp. 78 - 88
• Main Authors: TAKEDA, Setsuko, MATSUGI, Hiromasa, OSAKI, Tokio, TATEMOTO, Yukihiro
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English; Japanese
• Published: The Japanese Society for Temporomandibular Joint 1993; 一般社団法人 日本顎関節学会
• Subjects: Conservative therapy; Muscular-intracapsular-mixed type; Splints; Temporomandibular joint dysfunction; スプリント; 保存治療; 筋肉-顎関節-混合型; 顎関節症
• ISSN: 0915-3004; 1884-4308
• DOI: 10.11246/gakukansetsu1989.5.78

We classified temporomandibular joint dysfunction (TMJD) into muscular, intracapsular and mixed types. The clinical effects of conservative treatment were examined in 300 patients some of them taking mandibular kinesiography. The results are as follows. 1. The intracapsular type was the most frequent (158 cases), and there were few of the other two types (71 cases in both groups). 2. Among the symptoms, pain was the mosthighly successfully controlled (85.2% in muscular pain and 68.6% in joint pain), but the abnormal joint sounds were the most resistant to treatment being unchanged in 38.2% of all subjects. 3. Complete recovery was obtained in 59.2%, 31.0% and 32.9% of muscular, mixed and intracapsular type cases, respectively, and partial improvement was noted in 35.2%, 59.2% and 50.6% of the each type in the above order, respectively. In the muscular type, the symptoms disappeared only after the initial conservative treatment without splint application. However, all conservative approaches including splints were applied to most of the intracapsular and mixed group. 4. Corresponding with the clinical effects, mandibular movement became smooth with the increase of the speed of mandibular movement and decrease of its deviation. From these results, it appears that conservative treatments are useful for TMJD if their limitations and the application of adequate approaches to each type of TMJD are considered.