Prevalence of signs of temporomandibular joint dysfunction in asymptomatic edentulous subjects: a cross-sectional study

Patients having complete dentures with reduced vertical dimension generally do not manifest Temporomandibular Joint problems. It is not understood as to why the closure of jaws in dentulous individuals can predispose to Temporomandibular Joint problems, while the same etiology in edentulous subjects does not cause any concern. This study was planned to find out the prevalence of various Temporomandibular Joint dysfunction signs in subjects who were edentulous for a period of 6 months to 2 year. The various signs were obtained from a population of 100 healthy asymptomatic edentulous subjects by a questionnaire and then were clinically examined for the presence or absence of signs of Temporomandibular Joint dysfunction. 59% of the subjects exhibited one or more signs of Temporomandibular Joint dysfunction, 41% of the subjects did not show any signs of Temporomandibular Joint dysfunction. 56.6% of males reported signs of Temporomandibular Joint dysfunction when compared with females which was 62.5%. 43.3% of males did not show any signs of Temporomandibular Joint dysfunction when compared with those of the females which was 37.5%. The number of subjects who showed two signs was 29%, subjects who had only one sign was 25%. It was found that dysfunction was prevalent among both men and women in more than half of the asymptomatic subjects examined. 59% had one or as many as three signs of Temporomandibular dysfunction. The most commonly seen Joint dysfunction was the joint sounds which was 47%