Swedish dental journal. Supplement
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Diagnostic radiology has undergone profound changes in the last 30 years. New technologies are available to the dental field, cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) as one of the most important. CBCT is a catch-all term for a technology comprising a variety of machines differing in many respects: patient positioning, volume size (FOV), radiation quality, image capturing and reconstruction, image resolution and radiation dose. ⋯ The CTDI method is not applicable estimating effective dose for these units. Based on DAP values effective dose varied between 11-77 microSv (ICRP 60, 1991) in a retrospectively selected patient material. Adaptation of exposure parameters to diagnostic task can give substantial dose reduction.
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Among researchers and in the general population, awareness of the impact of health and health care on the quality of human life is increasing. An important medical and dental research area that addresses this issue is health measurement scales and psychometrics. Such instruments have numerous uses, such as to screen psychosocial aspects in individual patient care, assess perceived health or disease in population surveys, measure outcome in clinical trials, and gather data for cost-utility analyses. ⋯ There was a significant difference in OAS for age, gender, self-reported oral health, and self-reported general health status groups. Subjects who reported extreme satisfaction (item score of 10) varied between 17% for "color of the teeth" and 30% for "appearance of face" and "profile". The OHIP, JFLS, and OAS are considered well suited for use in research and as clinical outcome measures in patients with functional and aesthetic concerns, such as prosthodontic patients.
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Temporomandibular disorders (TMD) with orofacial pain with or without reduced jaw function, are frequent conditions in the general population. Different factors such as tooth clenching and grinding, sometimes due to enhanced psychosocial stress, and trauma to the jaws may be important as etiologic factors. Signs and symptoms of TMD are a common cause for general practitioners to use different intraoral appliances as pain and bite-force reducing devices and for improvement of a reduced jaw function. ⋯ In article IV the long-term efficacy was evaluated of the resilient appliance compared to the non-occluding control appliance in the TMD pain patients. Appliance wear was also studied in this article. As in the short-term follow-up, there was no statistically significant difference between the resilient appliance and the non-occluding control appliance in reducing TMD pain in the long-term perspective.
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The first aim of this thesis was to investigate the prevalence of temporomandibular disorder (TMD) pain in adolescents an a Swedish county and whether there were differences in patient age and gender and in treatment given for TMD pain by dentists in Public Dental Service (PDS) clinics. The epidemiological variable TMD-S was introduced in the PDS in Ostergötland County, Sweden, in 2000 and is recorded for all adolescents aged 12-19 at the annual routine examination. Self-reported TMD pain in this investigation was based upon the response of the subjects to two questions: (1) Do you have pain in your temples, face, temporomandibular joint, or jaws once a week or more? and (2) Do you have pain when you open your mouth wide or chew, once a week or more? Dental records of 200 patients with TMD pain were randomly selected from the population to evaluate treatment given for TMD. ⋯ A fluctuating pain pattern can be seen. TMD-S, with two self-report questions, has very good reliability and validity, and can be recommended for screening adolescents for TMD pain. TMD pain seems to have a greater Impact on girls than boys. particularly in ages 16-19 years.
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Comparative Study
Chronic orofacial pain. Understanding patients from two perspectives: the clinical view and the patient's experience.
The aim of this thesis was to study chronic orofacial pain patients from two perspectives--the clinical view and the experience of the patient--in order to improve the understanding of the patients and their condition. All patients had been referred to the Faculty of Odontology, Malmö University, Malmö, Sweden owing to chronic orofacial pain. The clinical perspective was investigated in a retrospective study of 109 consecutive chronic orofacial pain patients (85 females, 24 males) who had been examined by a pain group. ⋯ To study patients with chronic orofacial pain from a clinical viewpoint and from a patient perspective led to a deeper understanding of chronic orofacial pain as a complex condition that has an impact on every aspect of the patient's life. The patients often seek dental care because of the pain. It seems to be important in dentistry to develop constructive strategies for caring for these patients--especially when the dental disease condition has already been adequately diagnosed and treated, but the patients still experience pain.