Acupuncture and occlusal splint therapy in the treatment of craniomandibular disorders. Part I. A comparative study.

One hundred and ten patients, 23 males and 87 females, participated in a comparative study of the effect of acupuncture and occlusal splint therapy. All the patients exhibited signs and symptoms of craniomandibular disorders (CMD) and had had pain for more than six months. The participants were randomly assigned to three groups; acupuncture treatment, occlusal splint therapy or control. The patients were evaluated before and immediately after treatment/control time. Ten different subjective and/or clinical assessment variables were used in the evaluation of the treatment effects. Both acupuncture and occlusal splint therapy reduced the symptoms as compared with the control group in which the symptoms remained essentially unchanged. In this short-term study, acupuncture gave better subjective results (p < 0.001) than the occlusal splint therapy.