The progressive erosion suffered by temporomandibular joint structures in Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (JIA) patients involves also masticatory muscles, which must readapt the masticatory pattern to ensure the correct function of the stomatognathic system. This adaptation leads to dysfunction and pain. So, if no intervention on the stomatognathic system is performed, muscle alteration and pain could progressively become worse as the erosion on TMJ structures continues.
As muscular suffering is an earlier predictive sign of TMJ disorders while joint damage occurs later, a technology like Teethan, that is able to quantitatively assess the state of activity of masseter and temporal muscles, is a pivotal asset to have access to. Teethan’s Occlusal Test is both a clinical instrumented test which offers reliable, non-invasive and easy to acquire functional prognostic indicators. With regards to this specific pathology, being able to detect earlier stages of TMJ and to clearly understand how the masticatory muscles have been affected by it, it’s crucial to structure a proper treatment. In order to correlate TMJ involvement with JIA, a clinical study assessed masseter and temporal muscles activity by means of Occlusal Test, comparing healthy and pathological subjects. In particular, D’Attilio and colleagues based their work on the ratio between the masseter muscle activity and that of the temporal, which physiologically is greater than 1. Consequently, if such ratio were to be found less than 1 it would indicate the presence of TMJ disorders in patients with JIA.
The results showed a prevalence of the pathological ratio as a further evidence of what has been said so far. Muscle evaluation in growing patients is crucial to detect an early involvement of the joint structures in relation to a pathology that it’s known to induce lesion more and more debilitating with the passing of time and Teethan allows the practitioner to do just that.
References
D’Attilio, M.; Di Carlo, B.; Caroccia, F.; Moscagiuri, F.; d’Angelo, D.M; Chiarelli, F.; Festa, F.; Breda, L.; Clinical and Instrumental TMJ Evaluation in Children and Adolescents with Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis: A Case-Control Study. Appl. Sci. 2021, 11, 5380.
