The status of temporomandibular and cervical spine education in post-professional physical therapy training programs recognized by Member Organizations of IFOMPT: an investigation of didactic and clinical education

Abstract

Objectives

The purpose of this investigation was to establish an international baseline of the quantity of physical therapist education on temporomandibular disorders (TMD) during post-professional Orthopedic Manual Physical Therapy (OMPT) education.

Methods

An electronically distributed survey was sent to programs and data analyzed for trends, including a comparison of TMD and cervical spine disorders education. Current data were compared to pre-existing data from the United States.

Results

For the current data-set, the Mann-Whitney U test demonstrated statistical significance when comparing TMD and cervical spine disorders education for both the hours of didactic training provided (p < 0.0001) and the number of patients seen during clinical training (p < 0.006). When comparing the United States and international data, statistically significant greater exposure was reported for both didactic (p < 0.0001) and clinical education (p < 0.006) of TMD topics in the United States but not for didactic (p = 0.23) or clinical education (p = 0.15) of cervical spine topics.

Discussion

These data again indicate a lack of uniformity between post-professional training programs in OMPT with respect to TMD education. There is, however, consistency in that most programs provided more training on cervical spine disorders than TMD. Based on these findings, further investigations are appropriate to determine if TMD education is adequate during post-professional OMPT education.

Keywords:

• Temporomandibular disorders
• TMD
• neck pain
• physical therapy specialty
• training programs
• professional education
• orthopedics
• manual therapy

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Executive Committee of the International Federation of Orthopedic Manual Physical Therapists as well as the Liaisons for their assistance in making this investigation possible.