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Short‐term efficacy of physical therapy compared to splint therapy in treatment of arthrogenous TMD
Author(s) -
ISMAIL F.,
DEMLING A.,
HEßLING K.,
FINK M.,
STIESCHSCHOLZ M.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
journal of oral rehabilitation
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.991
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1365-2842
pISSN - 0305-182X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2842.2007.01748.x
Subject(s) - medicine , splint (medicine) , randomized controlled trial , significant difference , physical therapy , wilcoxon signed rank test , surgery , mann–whitney u test
Summary A prospective randomized study was carried out to evaluate the efficacy of physical therapy in addition to splint therapy on treatment outcome in patients with temporomandibular disorders (TMD) with respect to objective and subjective parameters. Twenty‐six patients suffering from an arthrogenic TMD and exhibiting a painfully restricted jaw opening were randomized in two groups. Thirteen patients were treated solely with Michigan splint (group I), 13 patients received supplementary physical therapy (group II). Before treatment a clinical examination and electronic recording of jaw movements were performed and subjective pain level was evaluated by visual analogue scales. After 3 months of therapy maintenance of improvement was evaluated. Within treatment groups comparison of data before and after treatment was analysed using Wilcoxon test. Groups were compared by Mann–Withney‐ U test. A P ‐value < 0.05 was considered significant. Compared with the baseline, in both groups mandibular movement capacity increased significantly after treatment, whereas subjective pain decreased significantly ( P < 0.05). Active jaw opening increased from 28.6 ± 5.8 to 35.9 ± 4.8 mm in group I and from 30.1 ± 5.4 to 40.8 ± 4.1 mm in group II. After therapy the difference of active jaw opening between groups was significant ( P < 0.05). Physical therapy also gave a supplementary improvement of protrusive mandibular movement capacity during electronic registration and subjective pain level. For none of these parameters this difference between groups was significant. Physical therapy seems to have a positive effect on treatment outcome of patients with TMD.