PURPOSE To document orofacial rehabilitation and outcomes after full thickness orofacial burn. METHODS Participants included 12 consecutive patients presenting with full thickness orofacial burns. A group of 120 age-matched healthy participants was recruited for normative comparison. Non-surgical exercise was initiated within 48 h of admission and continued until wounds had healed, circumoral...

Vertical mandibular position is considered to have an effect on the patency of the upper airway, because mouth opening is associated with a backward and downward displacement of the mandible and tongue. This study was conducted to investigate the nature of mandibular displacement at rest and to determine whether or not different respiration modes and body postures influence the mandibular posit...

OBJECTIVES The purpose of this study was to clarify which findings in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are good predicators of pain and mouth opening limitation in patients with temporomandibular joint (TMJ) internal derangement (ID). MATERIALS AND METHODS Clinical examinations for pain and mouth opening limitation were conducted for suspected TMJ ID. MRI scans were taken within a week of cli...

BACKGROUND Effects of exercise therapy for trismus secondary to head and neck cancer have not been reviewed systematically since 2004. METHODS Four databases were searched. The quality of observational studies and randomized controlled trials was assessed. RESULTS Two hundred eleven articles were found, 20 studies were included. A large variation in research methodology, stretching techniqu...

The prospective study conducted by Dr. Manuel Martin-Flores and his colleagues at Cornell University published in a recent issue of The Veterinary Journal (Martin-Flores et al., 2014) evaluates the implications of wide mouth opening onmaxillary artery blood flow in cats. Their results shed new light on what had already been suspected by the same authors and others investigating the cause of tem...

BACKGROUND Radiation therapy is a therapeutic modality widely used for treatment of upper aerodigestive tract (UADT) neoplasms. However, its action is not restricted to tumor cells, and it may cause a variety of adverse reactions, including reduced jaw mobility. MATERIAL AND METHODS A prospective cohort study was conducted to assess changes in jaw mobility in patients with UADT cancer undergo...

Introduction Mandibular coronoid process hyperplasia is an uncommon congenital or developmental temporomandibular joint disorder, characterized by elongation of the coronoid process, which may cause limited mandibular movement as a consequence of interference between the hyperplastic coronoid process and the medial surface of the zygomatic arch. Methods Mandibular coronoid process hyperplasia...

OBJECTIVE The objective of this study was to compare an image-guided puncture technique (IGPT) with conventional puncture technique (CPT) with respect to accuracy of needle entry, maximal mouth opening, and pain in pumping manipulation treatment of internal derangement of the temporomandibular joint (TMJ). STUDY DESIGN The subjects comprised 178 patients with internal derangement of the TMJ w...

Radiotherapy, when used in head and neck cancer treatment, can produce side effects in the patients, such as decreased salivary production, xerostomia, opportunistic infections, radiation caries, dysphagia, local discomfort and the limitation of mouth opening. The aim of this study was to evaluate the amplitude of mouth opening in patients before and immediately after the completion of radiothe...

We propose a new method for estimation of area of mouth opening from a video sequence of the speaking person. In a paper published in 2000, Grant and Seitz have reported the different degrees of correlation between acoustic envelopes and visible movements. In our method, we exploit these correlations to establish a mathematical model of a Single-Input Multiple-Output (SIMO) system in which the ...