A 21/2-year follow-up of changes in headache and mandibular dysfunction after stomatognathic treatment

Abstract

A 21/2-year follow-up of the treatment results in 52 patients with mandibular dysfunction and recurrent headache has been compared with pretreatment and 1-year follow-up findings. It was shown that (1) the clinical and subjective improvement observed after 1 year was maintained in most patients after 21/2 years, (2) 13% of patients received no benefit from treatment, (3) 10% of patients had relapses during the follow-up period, (4) 8% of patients thought that they needed further treatment, and (5) nearly 50% of those treated continued to use an occlusal splint at regular or periodic intervals, but few continued use of therapeutic exercises for more than 3 months. It can be concluded that the long-term prognosis for treatment of mandibular dysfunction is good even when recurrent headache is considered a symptom of this complex syndrome.