Comparative Evaluation of Physiotherapy and Pharmacotherapy in the Management of Temporomandibular Joint Myofascial Pain

Objectives: The present study is a prospective study carried out to evaluate the efficacy of physiotherapy methods like ultrasound, transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation, low intensity light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation and compare the same with pharmacotherapy comprising of analgesics and muscle relaxants, in the management of temporomandibular joint myofascial pain.

Methods: A total of 40 patients included in the study. Subjects were randomly assigned to one of the two groups, each group consisting of 20 subjects. Subjects of Group A received a combination of muscle relaxants and analgesics and Group B subjects received, ultrasound, transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation, or light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation. All the patients were evaluated for subjective and objective symptoms at baseline and then following one, four, eight, and 16 weeks post treatment. All the subjects were evaluated with visual analog scale, Global Pain Impact scale scores, number of tender muscles, and maximum comfortable mouth opening.

Results: The parameters evaluated revealed significant improvement in Group B following treatment and also during the follow period as compared to Group A subjects.

Conclusion: Physiotherapy, having the advantages of better patient compliance and lack of adverse side effects, can be considered as primary treatment modality of patients with myofascial pain.