Prevalence of Temporomandibular dysfunctions symptoms in children and in adults

The term temporomandibular dysfunction (TMD) usually defines a number of symptoms and clinical signs occurring in the masticatory muscles, temporomandibular joint and structures associated with it, or in the muscles and joint simultaneously. Etiologically, temporomandibular dysfunctions are viewed as multifactorial disorders, involving a significant number of both direct and indirect causal factors. Temporomandibular dysfunctions are widely present in adolescents and adults, as well as in children. The symptoms of temporomandibular disorders have been reported in 20-25% of individuals. Nine epidemiologic studies have been analyzed in order to assess the prevalence of symptoms of TMD in the population of adults. The results demonstrated that the prevalence of TMD symptoms significantly varied in the population. At least one of the symptoms in adults occurred at the prevalence of 30-49.9%. As for the gender, most studies showed a higher prevalence of TMD in women compared to men. Six epidemiologic studies were analyzed in order to assess the prevalence of TMD symptoms in children. The analysis demonstrated that the prevalence of TMD symptoms greatly varied in children. At least one of the symptoms occurred at the prevalence of 12.2% to 67.5%. The most common symptom in children was the sound in the TM joint during mouth opening. The results of numerous epidemiologic studies were hardly comparable because of different methodologies utilized. We thus recommend the use of more universal methods in epidemiologic studies. The picture of the population prevalence of TMD symptoms could thus be made much clearer.