Trigeminal neuralgia: is botulinum toxin effective?

Behavioural signs such as grimacing, guarding, resistance to care, pacing/rocking etc will give clues to the fact that a person with dementia is in pain

Six small RCTs were included in this review. Findings suggest that botulinum toxin type A (BoTN-A) has a positive effect on post treatment pain. Hover the results should be interpreted cautiously as the quality of the evidence is limited and more high quality studies are needed.

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Review suggests that counselling may have a role in management of temporomandibular disorders

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Temporomandibular disorders (TMD) are a group of disorders with symptoms that include pain, clicking, grating in the jaw joint and/or problems chewing or opening the jaw.   It has been estimated that around 75% of the population have at least one sign of TMD.  The aim of this review was to assess the effectiveness of counselling [read the full story…]

Some weak evidence for non-invasive psychosocial interventions in the management of chronic orofacial pain

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This Cochrane review  aimed to determine efficacy of psychosocial interventions in the management of chronic orofacial pain.   The authors highlight four recognisable symptom complexes of chronic orofacial pain that may coexist: temporomandibular disorder (myofacial face pain); atypical facial pain (atypical facial neuralgia); atypical odontalgia (phantom tooth pain); and burning mouth (oral dysaesthesia, glossodynia, glossopyrosis). Searches [read the full story…]