Clinical Examination

The comprehensive pain-based patient history (anamnesis) is followed by a short, focused clinical examination. The first objective here is to establish whether the pain is coming from the muscle and/or the jaw joint. And, in the case of joint pain, it needs to be established whether it is arthritis or arthrosis. Any noise in the joint will also be noted. With any CMD diagnosis, it still needs to be determined whether there is any restriction of movement in the lower jaw. The clinical examination can be carried out quite easily using a ruler with a millimetre scale to measure the extent of movement of the jaw and the doctor also just has to feel the chewing muscles and jaw joint with his hands. A normal clinical diagnosis requires no additional technical procedures. But something that is absolutely necessary is an assessment of the patient’s mental stress level using an appropriate questionnaire such as the GCS-D, the HADS or other suitable devices.