Healthcare Professionals • What Is The Center?

The Craniofacial Pain Center of Tufts University School of Dental Medicine is devoted to the diagnosis and management of temporomandibular disorders and chronic head, neck and facial pain.

Temporomandibular disorders have been defined by the American Academy of Orofacial Pain as:

"a collective term embracing a number of clinical problems that involve the masticatory musculature, the temporomandibular joint (TMJ) and associated structures, or both."

Orofacial pain can exist due to disease or as part of neurovascular, neuropathic or psychogenic disorders. These may be intracranial or extracranial in origin. In the past ,the above terms were loosely termed " TMJ" and widely viewed as one syndrome. In reality it actually represents the following multiple disorders with a common presenting symptom - pain. Temporomandibular joint articular disorders are specifically in the joint.

These include disc displacements with and without reduction, deviation in form, dislocation, subluxation, inflammatory conditions, osteoarthritides and ankylotic changes. Muscle Disorders may involve the masticatory musculature as well as other skeletal muscles of the head and neck. Subgroup classifications include myofascial pain, myositis, myospasm, protective muscle splinting and muscle contracture.

Other conditions falling into this category are muscle neoplasms and fibromyalgia. Cervical and spinal disorders related to vertebral rotations and instability, disc herniations, ligamentous injuries and nerve impingements involving the cervical and brachial plexi of nerves. Neurological pain disorders including neurovascular disorders such as migraine and cluster headaches, mixed type headaches, arteritis and other vascular disorders. Neuropathic pain disorders including various neuralgias and deafferentation syndromes commonly related to the teeth, face and jaws.

Psychogenic pain disorders such as somatoform disorders, anxiety and depression, mood disturbances, and other DSM IV diagnoses commonly found with chronic pain disorders.

The Center is one of the largest centers of its kind in the United States, and we incorporate true multidisciplinary approachs to the treatment of complex pain problems.