Volume 24 - Issue 1

Terminologies describing a wide area of dysfunction and pain in the head, neck, and temporomandibular joint (TMJ) lack definitive description. Not only can the profession not agree on the definition of the terms, the leading government dental agency National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) stated that there is no widely accepted, standard test to correctly identify TMJ dysfunctions. If testing is ordered, the NIDCR asks the patient to request another independent opinion. It ...

I was sitting in the backseat of a Piper, 4-Seat, Archer II at the Durango La Plata Airport listening to my son get clearance prior to take off with me as a passenger for the first time. After a smooth lift-off, we were airborne flying over Mesa Verde and around the Sleeping Ute Mountain (shaped like a sleeping Indian lying on his back) on our way to Monument Valley. It was a bright, clear, western ...

The present study was conducted to investigate whether there was a functional coupling between the head and mandibular movements in ten patients with mandibular protrusion (MP) and ten control subjects with normal occlusion (Normal), using a six degrees-of-freedom measuring device. Single-peak waveforms were predominantly seen in both MP (98.2%) and Normal (99.3%). However, vertical displacements of the upper and lower incisor points (VDUIP and VDLIP) were all significantly larger in MP than those ...

The purpose of this study was to measure the performance of a new design of occlusal sensor, the high definition (HD) sensor, and directly compare this sensor to the previous design. This new HD sensor design has increased active recording area by 33%, and decreased inactive recording area by 50% as compared to the previous design (G3). This was accomplished by determining the force reproduction variability for repeated occlusal closures on the same sensor for ...

The temporomandibular opening index (TOI) is a more useful measure of mandibular movement than linear mouth opening, since it is independent of age, gender, ramus length, and gonial angle. It is also useful when categorizing temporomandibular disorder (TMD) patients into diagnostic groups. Two subgroups of myogenous patients have been identified, one with a high and one with a low temporomandibular opening index. This study examined initial symptom severity in these two subgroups. Thirty-three (33) patients ...

The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficiency of the Pró-Fono Facial Exerciser (Pró-Fono Productos Especializados para Fonoaudiologia Ltda.., Barueri/SP, Brazil) to decrease bruxism, as well as the correlation between the masseter and the buccinator muscles using electromyography (EMG). In this study, 39 individuals ranging from 23 to 48 years of age were selected from a dental school and then underwent surface EMG at three different periods of time: 0 ...

The purpose of this study was to examine the hardness of the masseter and trapezius muscles at various head positions and to explore the relationship of these two muscles to each other in terms of their respective levels of muscle hardness at different head positions. Twenty-two asymptomatic male subjects participated in this study. Using a hand-held hardness meter, muscle hardness was first measured in a relaxed position as a baseline. The subjects were then asked ...

The modifications induced by microgravity on the coordinated patterns of movement of the head, trunk, and limbs are reported on extensively. However, apparently there is little data on the masticatory muscles. In normal gravitational conditions, information from the neck and stomatognathic apparatus play a role in maintaining the body’s balance and equilibrium. The current pilot study used normal gravity conditions to investigate the hypothesis of a functional coupling between occlusion and neck muscles and ...

This purpose of this study was to investigate the immediate effects of plantar inputs on both the upper half muscle activity (anterior temporal, masseter, digastric, sternocleidomastoid, upper and lower trapezius, cervical) and the body posture, by means of electromyography (EMG) and vertical force platform, respectively. Twenty four (24) healthy adults, between the ages of 24 and 31 years (25.3±1.9), with no history of craniomandibular disorder or systemic musculoskeletal dysfunction, were randomly divided ...

The differential diagnosis of diseases and disorders having head pain as a symptom is often a difficult challenge for health care professionals. The complexity of this problem, the need for computer aided diagnosis, and the assumptions upon which one diagnostic software program was developed are discussed. A database driven user-oriented Internet website was offered at no charge to headache sufferers, and this vehicle provided the data source for research. The software program compares consistent user ...

Osteochondroma is the most common benign tumor of the axial skeleton, though it is rarely found in the oral and maxillofacial regions. Reported is a case of osteochondroma affecting the mandibular condyle of a 22-year-old Japanese woman. The patient visited the hospital with the chief complaint of facial asymmetry. She had pain with clicking on her right temporomandibular joint (TMJ), resulting in trismus and facial asymmetry with a chin deviation to the left side. Her ...