Symptom characteristics in TMD patients reporting blunt trauma and/or whiplash injury

Descriptive data are presented for 100 patients reporting facial pain and temporomandibular dysfunction (TMD) precipitated by (1) overt facial/head trauma, (2) "whiplash" injury, and (3) "whiplash" injury with overt trauma. Analysis of the data suggests that these TMD trauma subsets are significantly different in terms of total number of pain sites, presence of concomitant neck pain, range of opening, and report of sleep disturbance and involvement in litigation. They also varied with respect to reducing and nonreducing disc displacement. However, significant differences were not observed for initial pain at presentation; muscle pressure pain threshold; McGill affective or HSCL-90 depression, anxiety, and somatization scores; prior pain duration; or time post-trauma before pain onset. These findings suggest that patients within these trauma categories share some common characteristics but may differ in important demographic, pain, and temporomandibular joint dysfunction variables.