Effectiveness of Dry Needling vs Manual Therapy in Patients With Temporomandibular Joint Disorders.

Effectiveness of Dry Needling vs Manual Therapy in Patients With Temporomandibular Joint Disorders. A Randomized Controlled Trial.

Temporomandibular Joint Disorders (TJD) represent a set of conditions that involve pain and dysfunction of the temporomandibular joint. TJD are a frequent disability affection in the worldwide population and the 35% of affected present at least a symptom such as orofacial pain, mouth movement limitations and snapping or crying temporo-mandibular. Due to the increase of the incidence of the TJD the investigators propose to complete this study.

A randomized controlled trial with parallel groups have been designed and blind evaluation of the response variable.

The hypothesis is that dry needling produces a positive effect in the involved variables of this study in comparison with manual therapy.

The aim of this RCT is to compare the effectiviness of the application of manual therapy in comparison with dry needling in the perceived pain, mouth opening, the degree of cervical disability and the pressure-pain threshold (PPT) of myofascial trigger points (MTrP) in patiens with TJD.

Inclusion Criteria:

Female and male subjects with an age of 18-65 years old with a TJD who meet at least two of the following inclusion criteria:

• Pain on palpation of the myofascial trigger points of the masseter, anterior temporal, posterior temporal, external pterygoid and sternocleidomastoid muscles (minimum 3 active trigger points).
• Pain in the temporomandibular joint.
• Limitation of mouth opening.
• Clicking of the temporomandibular joint.

Exclusion Criteria:

Subjects who present any of the following characteristics:

• fibromyalgia, orthodontia, systemic disease, syndrome or pathology with possible joint repercussions, patients undergoing treatment with NSAIDs, jaw fracture, mandibular surgery, non-collaborative patients or patients with phobia needles.