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Screening for temporomandibular disorders in dental practice
Author(s) -
Delcanho Robert
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
australian dental journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.701
H-Index - 71
eISSN - 1834-7819
pISSN - 0045-0421
DOI - 10.1111/j.1834-7819.1994.tb04781.x
Subject(s) - medicine , informed consent , temporomandibular disorder , clinical practice , dental practice , dentistry , alternative medicine , family medicine , temporomandibular joint , pathology
A simple screening procedure to determine evidence of a temporomandibular disorder (TMD) in a patient is presented. The current view is that dentists are responsible for the recognition and management of these disorders. The dentist should therefore perform a TMD screening examination on every patient and document the patient's functional status. If this is not known then it is impossible to discuss with the patient the possible implications of proposed dental treatment which could potentially worsen a pre‐existing TMD. Unless functional status is documented and informed consent obtained from the patient prior to proceeding with dental treatment, the dentist may be held liable should TMD problems develop during or after the treatment.