Measuring the impact of a dental practice on TM disorder symptoms.

This article describes a practical, quantitative method of measuring changes in temporomandibular disorder (TMD) symptoms in a dental practice. It applies the TMJ Scale to produce a number of clinically important measures of treatment effectiveness. Those measures include pre- and post-treatment symptom severity, percent of patients improved, level of improvement, and percent of patients converting to non-symptomatic after treatment.

The predictive value of the TMJ scale in detecting psychological problems and non-TM disorders in patients with temporomandibular disorders.

Identification of psychological problems and non-TM disorders in patients with temporomandibular disorders (TMD) is an essential but often difficult task. The TMJ Scale is a self-report symptom inventory that can detect these problems. The predictive value model for assessing the accuracy of diagnostic tests is reviewed.