Evaluation of the effectiveness of conservative treatments for miogenic temporomandibular dysfunctions: integrating review of the literature

Abstract

Objective: integrative review on the main methods of conservative treatment for Temporomandibular Dysfunction, being occlusal plaque, counseling and pharmacotherapy. Materials and method: the search was done in the databases PubMed, SciELO, Lilacs and Google Scholar using the descriptors: "counseling" and "temporomandibular joint", "counseling" and "facial pain", "counseling" and "temporomandibular joint dysfunction syndrome", "counseling" and “temporomandibular joint" and "drug therapy" and "counseling" and "drug therapy" and "facial pain". Results: in total were found 314 studies in this work, but only 8 were included. These tests prove the efficacy of these treatment methods, causing to the patient a decrease in painful symptoms, an increase in masticatory functions, and also providing a relief in muscle tension due to the relaxation of related structures. The occlusal plaque tends to decrease the forces applied in the occlusion, preventing the muscles from exerting excessive force. Some drugs (anti-inflammatories, antidepressants and muscle relaxants) are able to minimize the painful symptomatology, providing an improvement in the quality of sleep and reduction of episodes of intense pain. In turn, counseling guides patients to avoid attitudes that worsen their illness, educating them and making them aware of their parafunctional habits, as well as reducing the factors that cause painful symptoms. Conclusion: we could observe that these treatments present relevant success indexes when it refers to the decrease of the symptoms, especially the counseling, which is still a little explored conservative therapy. It is still necessary to carry out further studies in this field in order to obtain increasingly concrete and conclusive results.