Temporomandibular Joint Clinical Considerations for Practice

This book reviews and discusses some of these approaches, and some of the controversies aroused by them in the hope that the dental profession will soon arrive at more effective, scientifically based treatments.

Health professionals have dealt with temporomandibular disorders, a major cause of non-dental pain in the orofacial region, by developing a broad range of treatments, ranging from occlusal alteration to multidisciplinary care regimens. It is with this background that health practitioners have responded to their patients' needs by developing a broad range of treatments, often determined more by the specialty of the practitioner than by scientifically-based treatment. There are practitioners claiming successful outcomes from a diverse number of treatments ranging from education and behavioral counseling, use of medications, occlusal therapies, surgery and splints, to a combination of various treatments.