顎関節症患者の治療中断理由について アンケートによる調査

Abstract

A tendency noticed in recent years that patients with temporomandibular joint arthrosis are increasing. Difficulties are usually encountered for selecting countermeasures because the etiology and pathological behavior varies so much with individual patients. In our clinic a special section is made for treatment of outpatients with temporomandibular joint arthrosis but many patients fail to continue visiting our clinic during the course of the treatments.We have therefore conducted a clinical statistical study on 348 patients who visited our clinic with temporomandibular joint arthrosis complaints in the past 3 years. Questionnaires were also given to 138 of them who failed to complete the therapy, in order to find their reasons for suspending their visits to our clinic.The results revealed the following findings;1. As in the conventional reports, female patients in their 20s with chief complaints of pain had the largest share of the total number of patients. Those whose terms of visits to our clinic for less than one month were of the largest percentage.2. Those who could be judged as successfully cured amounted to 197 out of 348 cases (56.6%).3. Those who suspended their visits to our clinic were mainly males. Those with a chief complaint of awkward sounds in the temporomandibular joint were of the largest percentage. They stopped coming before their fifth visit.4. Those who failed to continue their visits to our clinic were of the largest percentage among those who made their first visits to our clinic after more than 2 years had passed since the onset of their disease.5. Those who failed to continue their visits to our clinic due to relieved symptoms were of the largest percentage of the total number of patients.6. In the majority of the patients who failed to continue their visits to our clinic, more or less symptoms of temporomandibular joint remained even at the present time.7. Approx. 10% of the patients suspended the treatment, despite unrelieved symptions.On the basis of the above results, the difficulties in the therapeutic treatment of temporomandibular joint arthrosis were realized. It was therefore conceived as necessary to strive for establishing accurate therapy against it and for better recognition of patients against temporomandibular joint arthrosis so as to have their better cooperation to the therapeutic treatments.