Information for fellow professionals

 

From our many years of expertise and specialism in this area, we know how difficult it is to treat patients with functional disorders of the masticatory system and symptoms of temporomandibular disorders (TMD) in a way that permanently addresses the causes.

Patients often suffer from these symptoms for a long time, sometimes greatly, without the masticatory system being recognized as the cause. They are also often incorrectly labelled as “teeth-grinders” or “bruxers“, or it is assumed that their complaint is psychogenic in origin. Neither of these approaches addresses the problem.

We also know that many dentists who have no qualms when it comes to other fields of dentistry are uncertain when it comes to treating patients with functional disorders of the masticatory system, as the necessary expertise in this area can only be attained by treating patients of this kind on a very regular basis.

As such, patients are often referred to us by other dentists, as well as by osteopaths and physiotherapists.

Taking the following approach has proven beneficial:

We’ll determine whether or not an arthropathy, myopathy or occlusopathy is partly or wholly responsible for the symptoms of the patient you’ve referred to us.

(In such cases, it is entirely possible that a purely osteopathic/physiotherapeutic treatment would be difficult to perform, or that its permanent success would be rendered impossible).

If this is the case, we will make a treatment recommendation for your patient.

If desired, we will provide the patient with splint therapy, as an appropriate pretreatment based on their diagnosis, until they are asymptomatic and have developed a stable bite position. Then, if necessary and if desired by the patient, you can provide them with further restorative or orthopedic treatment. If you do not want to perform this yourself, we’ll take care of this for you too.

We would like to thank all of our fellow professional dentists, osteopaths and physiotherapists for their trust in us; our practice team is happy about every patient it has been able to successfully treat.

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