Don’t Clench That Jaw!

Maybe you’ve been told that a clenched jaw makes you look determined, but it has its drawbacks. Like making you more likely to develop temperomandibular disorder, or TMD. This painful condition, which is the second-most pain-causing muscular/skeletal condition (behind low back pain) affects over 10% of Americans, according to a report in the Journal of the American Dental Association. The authors from UT Southwestern Medical Center showed that patients with acute TMD (less than 6 months’ duration) treated with a biopsychosocial therapy and standard dental care had less pain and depression and could cope better than subjects given the standard dental care alone. Moreover, after a year the patients who didn’t have the biopsychosocial therapy were more likely to have developed an anxiety disorder or other psychiatric disorders (somatoform or affective disorders) than those not getting the therapy.

What is biopsychosocial therapy? It’s based on the model proposed by Engel in 1977. In this study, the therapy combined two separately effective techniques – pain-coping and biofeedback skills. Over a 6-week period instruction was given on mind-body relationships, relaxation training, and biofeedback using monitoring equipment recording muscle tension, respiration, and temperature.

This approach is fairly personnel-intensive. However, in a later report the same authors show that it is, indeed, cost-effective. Since TMD is now regarded by many as a biopsychosocial disorder, this sort of therapy seems a logical attack point on a distressing condition.