Hwangbo Na-Kyung, Woo Keon-Cheol, Kim Seong-Taek
Department of Orofacial Pain and Oral Medicine, Yonsei University College of Dentistry, Yonsei-ro 50-1, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul 03722, Republic of Korea.
Healthcare (Basel). 2023 May 16;11(10):1443. doi: 10.3390/healthcare11101443.
Since the start of the 2019 coronavirus pandemic, interest in digital therapeutics (DTx) has increased. Temporomandibular disorder (TMD) fundamentally requires cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), including physical self-regulation. An application that records TMD pain and parafunctional activities for CBT has recently been developed. However, evidence of the reduction of clinical symptoms in patients via repetitive software-driven CBT is lacking. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the impact of applications that support CBT regarding the performance of CBT and the improvement of clinical symptoms in temporomandibular joint patients. From 20 October 2020 to 7 January 2021, we randomly assigned 41 participants diagnosed with TMD to control (conventional treatment) and experimental (conventional treatment + application use) groups. We randomly assigned 41 participants diagnosed with TMD to control (conventional treatment) and experimental (conventional treatment + application use) groups. Improvements regarding the number of tender points, mouth opening, visual analog scale score, pain level upon palpation, joint sound, and stress were compared between the two groups. Compared with the control group, the experimental group showed significant improvements in the number of tender points and degree of mouth opening. They also showed improvements in pain level, joint sound, and locking, although not statistically significantly, as compared with the control group. Thus, further studies with a greater sample size need to be conducted to confirm the findings. Nevertheless, our results showed that repetitive cognitive behavioral therapy using a smartphone application can be used as digital therapeutics for temporomandibular disorder patients.
自2019年冠状病毒病大流行开始以来，人们对数字疗法（DTx）的兴趣有所增加。颞下颌关节紊乱病（TMD）从根本上需要认知行为疗法（CBT），包括身体自我调节。最近开发了一种用于CBT的记录TMD疼痛和副功能活动的应用程序。然而，缺乏通过重复性软件驱动的CBT来减轻患者临床症状的证据。本研究的目的是评估支持CBT的应用程序对CBT实施情况以及颞下颌关节病患者临床症状改善的影响。从2020年10月20日至2021年1月7日，我们将41名被诊断为TMD的参与者随机分为对照组（传统治疗）和实验组（传统治疗+使用应用程序）。我们将41名被诊断为TMD的参与者随机分为对照组（传统治疗）和实验组（传统治疗+使用应用程序）。比较了两组在压痛点数量、张口度、视觉模拟量表评分、触诊时的疼痛程度、关节弹响和压力方面的改善情况。与对照组相比，实验组在压痛点数量和张口度方面有显著改善。与对照组相比，他们在疼痛程度、关节弹响和绞锁方面也有改善，尽管在统计学上不显著。因此，需要进行更大样本量的进一步研究来证实这些发现。尽管如此，我们的结果表明，使用智能手机应用程序进行重复性认知行为疗法可作为颞下颌关节紊乱病患者的数字疗法。
