Acupuncture provides significant pain relief and enhances physical and emotional function for patients suffering from Temporomandibular disorders over sham acupuncture.
A total of sixty participants suffering from Temporomandibular disorders were randomly assigned to either receive genuine acupuncture or sham acupuncture treatments. They underwent three meetings every week, for four weeks. The assessment was formulated on the level of change in the mean weekly pain intensity from the start of the treatment to the subsequent 4 weeks. The analysis also centered on participants' jaw opening and movement, pain scales, and psychological scales, evaluated at week 4 and 8.
The acupuncture group exhibited notably decreased pain intensity, surpassing the sham group's performance by the 4th week, an effect that lasted till the 8th week. The acupuncture participants also revealed considerably enhanced improvements in the jaw movement, chronic pain rate, and emotional scales compared to the sham group. However, there weren't any significant differences in terms of pressure pain threshold and surface electromyography between the two groups.
