Dental News - Self-care treatments for temporomandibular disorders most beneficial, study finds

Dental Tribune International

Tue. 12. February 2019

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NEW YORK, U.S.: Dentists and patients use a variety of treatments to manage temporomandibular disorders (TMD). In a new study, researchers have found that patients rate treatments such as splints and bite guards as less helpful than self-care treatments, such as jaw exercises or warm compresses.

“Oral appliances are a common first-line treatment for TMD, despite mixed research results regarding their benefit. Even when oral splints have been found to have some benefit, they have not been found to be as effective for patients who also have widespread pain in the treatment of myofascial TMD (mTMD),” said Vivian Santiago, assistant research scientist at the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology, Radiology and Medicine at New York University (NYU) College of Dentistry and the study’s lead author.

In the study, researchers explored what non-medication treatments women with mTMD use to manage their pain and how effective patients perceive the treatments to be. Of the 125 women examined, oral appliances were used by 59 per cent of participants, physical therapy by 54 per cent and at-home jaw exercises by 34 per cent. Less common treatments included acupuncture, chiropractic treatments, trigger point injections, exercise or yoga and meditation or breathing, with 2.4 participants using more than one kind of treatment. Additionally, 26 patients of the 126 had both mTMD and fibromyalgia, allowing researchers to determine whether treatment differed for patients with widespread pain.

According to the study’s results, 84 per cent of participants reported that self-care activities, including jaw exercises, yoga or exercise, meditation, massage and warm compresses, helped them at least a little. In contrast, only 64 per cent of those who used oral appliances reported that they helped a little. Of the women who used oral appliances, 11 per cent said that they had made their pain worse. The researchers did not find significant differences between the number of treatments reported by women with or without fibromyalgia.

“Oral appliances did not outperform self-management care techniques in improving facial pain. Our results support the use of self-management as the first line of treatment for mTMD before considering more expensive interventions,” said Karen Raphael, professor at NYU College of Dentistry and the study’s co-author.

The study, titled “Perceived helpfulness of treatments for myofascial TMD as a function of comorbid widespread pain”, was published on 8 January in Clinical Oral Investigations.

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One thought on “Self-care treatments for temporomandibular disorders most beneficial, study finds”

Nancy Cole says:

February 20, 2019 at 8:02 pm

What are the best jaw exercises for TMD?

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