A retrospective five-year survey on the treatment outcome of disclusion time reduction (DTR) therapy in treating temporomandibular dysfunction patients

ABSTRACT

Objective

To assess the five-year long-term quality of life of patients who were treated with Disclusion Time Reduction Therapy (DTR).

Methods

Thirty occluso-muscular disorder patients responded to two questionnaires about their symptom intensities, frequencies, and pain levels that were given to the patients before DTR therapy and five years after. Both surveys were subjected to the Wilcoxon signed-rank test to compare differences in the reported intensities, frequencies, and pain levels.

Results

A statistically significant reduction was found between the pre- and five-year post-DTR treatment intensities, frequencies, and pain scores (p < 0.05).

Conclusion

The chronic pain intensity and frequency observed in patients with occluso-muscular disorders can be markedly reduced by Immediate Complete Anterior Guidance Development (ICAGD)/DTR therapy, while improving the patient’s overall long-term quality of life. Many pre-ICAGD/DTR daily chronic and painful, occluso-muscular symptoms were no longer present years after undergoing ICAGD/DTR treatment.

KEYWORDS:

• Occluso-muscular disorders
• temporomandibular disorders (TMD)
• disclusion time reduction therapy (DTR)
• immediate complete anterior guidance development coronoplasty (ICAGD)

Acknowledgments

We thank Dr. Robert B. Kerstein for his guidance and timely help during the editing of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Funding

No funding was received to support this study.