Dr. Adams' Alabama Headache Blog

The aim of this study was to determine the effect of pain reduction on the quality of life in pain patients. The Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) was used to measure specific pain itmes (earache, TMJ pain, Headaches, neck, upper and lower back pain), whereas the Short Form 36 (SF-36)was used to measure the quality of life through its 8 items: Physical Functiong(PF), Role Physical (RP), Bodily Pain (BP), General Health (GH), Vitality (VT), Social Functioning (PF), Role Emotional (RE) and Mental Health(MH). Fourty-four TMD and Orofacial pain patients (F=36, M=8, AGE= 35+/-13) with no history of physical disabilty of psychological problems were selected. Thirty control subjects (F=14,M=16, AGE=35+/-10) were selected randomly from the faculty and staff at the university. Patients and controls were requested to complete the VAS and the SF-36 forms at the initiation of the study and 3 months later. All patients had conservative treatment using intraoral appliance therapy with/out physical therapy modalities for the period of the study. The Wilcokon signed rank test was used to compare between pre and post treatment pain and SF-36 for patients and controls. There was a significant reduction in all pain items for patients, whereas there were no statistically significant changes for controls. SF-36 results showed a significant increase in all items fro patients with the exception of GH and RE. There were no significant changes in any of the SF-36 items for controls except an increase in social functioning. The Spearman's rhe was used to determine pre and post-treatment correlations between pain and SF-36 items. There were significant pre-treatment as well as post-treatment correlations for 1) TMJ pain and PF, RP, 2) face pain and VT, MH, 3) u/back and all SF-36 items except RE, 4) l/back and PF, VT. These results indicate that the reduction of pain in TMD and orofacial pain patients is associated with an improvement in patient's well-being, quality of life and perception of health as measured by the SF-36.