Oral behaviors mediate the relationship between anxiety and painful temporomandibular disorders.

Objectives: Anxiety is strongly associated with chronic musculoskeletal pain, including painful temporomandibular disorders (p-TMD). Non-functional oral behaviors-such as wake-time tooth clenching or keeping the lower jaw in a tense position-are prevalent stress-related behaviors among individuals with elevated anxiety. These behaviors are thought to act as maladaptive coping strategies increasing strain on the masticatory muscles and the temporomandibular joint, thereby enhancing peripheral nociceptive input and contributing to the onset or persistence of p-TMD in individuals with high anxiety.

Short-term Effects of a First-Line Treatment Including Counseling and Self-Management Strategies on Chronic TMD Muscle Pain and Awake Bruxism in Women.

Aims: To evaluate the short-term effects of a standardized first-line noninvasive approach (FL-A) including counseling and self-management strategies on pain, masticatory muscle tenderness, and awake bruxism in women with chronic temporomandibular disorder myalgia (mTMD) and to test whether patients' trait anxiety predicted their response to treatment.

Methods: FL-A was administered to 14 women with chronic mTMD (mean age ± SD = 33.8 ± 11.

Association between waking-state oral behaviours, according to the oral behaviors checklist, and TMD subgroups.

Objectives: To assess the association between waking-state oral behaviours and temporomandibular disorder (TMD) subgroups and to develop new scoring methods for the Oral Behavior Checklist (OBC).

Methods: Patients with any TMD diagnosis, according to the diagnostic criteria for TMD (DC/TMD), were divided into subgroups: 'Dysfunctional-TMD' (n = 70), only mechanical dysfunction; 'Painful-TMD' (n = 204), only myalgia, arthralgia or both; and 'Painful-Dysfunctional TMD' (n = 95), combined pain and dysfunction. A group of individuals without TMD, 'Non-TMD' (n = 374), was used for testing associations.

Frequency of daytime tooth clenching episodes in individuals affected by masticatory muscle pain and pain-free controls during standardized ability tasks.

Objectives: Tooth clenching has been suggested to be related to temporomandibular pain. However, the electromyographic characteristics of daytime clenching episodes have been minimally investigated. This study aimed to analyze the frequency, amplitude, and duration of daytime clenching episodes in patients with masticatory muscle pain and pain-free individuals.