Avaliação de efeito placebo em pacientes portadores de disfunção de articulação temporomandibular (A.T.M.)

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

1995

RESUMO

Temporomandibular joint dysfunction has a high occurrence on population. In literature there are reports showing that patients present characteristic signs and symptoms as articular sounds, pain during mandibular function, limited mandibular moviments and sensitivity to muscular palpation. All studies agree that pain is the most frequently related symptom. It is chronic, which indicates a different and complex experience than acute pain. The objective of this investigation was evaluate the eventual pain changes on patients with temporomandibular joint dysfunction, considering two dimensions of pain: intensity (sensorial dimension) and displeasement (emotional dimension). 33 female patients were submitted to treatment with placebo for a consecutive period of 15 days where they filled a Daily Pain Evaluation Card, which is an instrument composed by analogic visual scales, that represent the two pain dimensions. A Social Readjustment Scale was also applied in order to evaluate the stress degree arising from external events which the patient was submitted on the last 12 months and the possible relationship between stress degree and pain reduction tlirough placebo. Out of 33 patients group, 18 took other drugs besides the placebo (DRUG WITH PLACEBO GROUP) and 15 took only placebo (PLACEBO WITHOUT DRUG GROUP). Patients were also divided according to their scores obtained from the Social Readjustment Scale, originating 6 sets of patients. Only PLACEBO WITHOUT DRUG GROUP set scores from 150 to 300 showed a marked decreasing tendency, which could be an indicator of placebo effect. However, the same result was not observed from the homologous set of PLACEBO PLUS DRUG GROUP. Using the pain intensity and displeasement variation criteria obtained from daily measurements before and after placebo treatment, it was observed that; - there was pain reduction from 4 out of the 6 patients related to the pain intensity set; - there was reduction from 5 out of 6 patients related to the pain despleasement set. So it seems reasonable to rise the hipothesis of occurence of the placebo effect.. It was also carried out the application of the Social Readjustment Scale on 33 patients without history or symptomatology of T.M.J, dysfunction and it was observed that 13 patients (43,44%) showed score below 150, 19 patients (63,33%) showed score between 150 and 300 and 1 patient (3,33%) showed score higher than 300. These results suggest that patients with T.M. J. dysfunction have stress levels higher than the normal population

ASSUNTO(S)

articulação temporomandibular

ACESSO AO ARTIGO

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