CHEWING PATTERN-ANALYSIS IN TMD PATIENTS WITH UNILATERAL AND BILATERAL INTERNAL DERANGEMENT

In order to evaluate chewing in temporomandibular disorder (TMD) patie nts with unilateral and bilateral internal derangement of the temporom andibular joint (TMJ), the envelope of motion and velocity of chewing were analyzed in 103 TMD patients with unilateral internal derangement , 42 patients with bilateral internal derangement and 10 normal subjec ts. It was found that patients with bilateral internal derangement dem onstrated a significantly restricted range of motion and reduced veloc ity than patients with unilateral internal derangement or normal subje cts. The analysis of chewing patterns in the frontal and sagittal plan es revealed that patients with bilateral internal derangement had no s pecific pattern while patients with unilateral internal derangement de monstrated a specific pattern. The analysis of chewing velocity patter n suggested that opening and closing patterns without any obvious peak velocity was significantly more frequent in patients with bilateral i nternal derangement than patients with unilateral internal derangement or normal subjects.