Assessment of Children’s Temporomandibular Joint Sounds and Ear Pain Associated with Teeth Bruxism

Abstract

Temporomandibular joint (TMJ) sounds in children are frequent with TMJ disorder. In addition to many different findings are designed to assess the relationship between ear pain and TMJ sound with bruxism in children. Aim: This study was designed to evaluate the possible relationship between ear pain and joint sound with bruxism in children. Subjects and Methods: The sample comprised 60 schoolchildren participants between 6 to 10 years of age, of whom 30 children with bruxism as study group G1 and another 30 without bruxism as a control group G2 who were scheduled and randomly selected for this study. Examiner performed assessment who was blinded allocation of the groups. Three readings were performed on each participant. The assessment involved (manual palpation, lateral and dorsal extra-auricular auscultation of TMJ by stethoscope for detecting joint sounds, differentiating between joint sounds) Collected data were checked, entered, and statistically analyzed to test different variables by chi-square test with the level of significance (p< 0.05). Results: There was a statistically significant association between joint sounds regarding bruxism and age, which showed that higher prevalence rates of joint sounds were found in children aged eight to ten years in comparison to those aged six and seven years. However, there was a statistically insignificant association between joint sounds and type in relation to gender and ear pain. Conclusion: The bruxism in children may be associated with the symptoms of joint sounds with the significant association regarding age but insignificant with ear pain.