Jaw joint diagnostics and splint therapy

What is a functional analysis and why is it important?

Clinical studies show that at least 10% of all people have a dysfunction of the mouth, jaw and face, which we call craniomandibular dysfunction (CMD).

The CMD may have already led to painful symptoms or may be present unnoticed without symptoms.

Our goal is to identify the cause and eliminate pain or identify possible disorders at an early stage before damage to the temporomandibular joints occurs!

We distinguish between clinical and instrumental functional analysis.

Clinical functional analysis is a method for the dental and orthodontic examination of findings.  Instrumental functional analysis provides us with patient-specific, individual values of the lower jaw movements and is mainly used in the production of extensive dental prostheses.

Both analyses provide us with much information about the position of the jaws relative to each other, the tone of the muscles, the condition of the joint structures, the mobility of the jaw joints and the position and the functional patterns of your teeth.

Functional analysis helps to find causes of acute pain in the areas of the temporomandibular joints as well as muscle and facial pain.
These results can be used to initiate the necessary therapy.

Malfunctions are usually due to a variety of causes.

For this reason, it is particularly important for us to diagnose and treat existing functional disorders through close interdisciplinary cooperation between dentists, physiotherapists, orthopedists, osteopaths and orthodontists.

Functional analytical instrumental measures also include electronic, computer-aided registration procedures.
In our practice, instrumental functional analysis is carried out with the ARCUSdigma 2 from KAVO.

Arcus Digma 2

Arcus Digma 2 is a 3D ultrasonic measuring device.

This device offers us many advantages:

This enables us to measure and record the movements and the position of the temporomandibular joints as well as the centric occlusion (occlusion = contact between the upper and lower jaws, centricity = joint heads of the temporomandibular joint are in a central position).

This registration procedure also allows us to use the individually measured and recorded values to perfect the production of a comprehensive dental prosthesis.

Furthermore, we can use the values for the production of bite aids.

In the therapy of CMD, temporomandibular joint diseases can be diagnosed and treated.

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Occlusal splints

For a treatment with occlusal splint, please refer to (Dental splints) Zahnschienen