The concepts prevalence, need for treatment, and prevention of temporomandibular disorders: A suggestion for terminology

Abstract

The concepts active and passive treatment need and active and passive prevention need are suggested, to systematize some concepts used in discussions about temporomandibular disorders (TMD), to separate the treatment need figures from the prevalence figures, and to understand the great variation among TMD prevalence studies. On the basis of a summary of recently published papers and on a clinical 2-year follow-up study of 411 subjects, the suggestions seem to provide a reasonably good fit with clinical experience and earlier epidemiologic studies of TMD.

Key Words:

• Epidemiology
• oral
• longitudinal study
• taxonomy
• active
• passive
• temporomandibular joint