PURPOSE: to check the relationship between pain presence in head, face, mouth and neck muscles involved in the physiological process of chewing function and in the lateral and posterior aspects of temporomandibular joint (ATM) and acoustical glottic source vocal measures. METHOD: 24 women with ages varying between 16 and 56 year old with signs and symptoms of Temporomandibular Joint Dysfunction (TMD) took part of this study. We applied an Anamnesis questionnaire, a specific clinic exam to check pain presence in head, face, mouth, neck muscles and in the ATM, otorhinolaryngology, stomatognatical and pure tone audiometric evaluations, the voice recorder and the acoustic voice analysis by the Multi Dimensional Voice Program Advanced software from KayPentax. The results were analyzed thought the qui-square test with statistical significance of (p<0.05). RESULTS: there were statistical significance between the pain absence in the superficial masseter and the alteration in the acoustic vocal parameter, such as Voice Turbulence Index (VTI); pain absence in the temporomandibular posterior aspect joint and the alteration of pitch perturbation quotient (PPQ) and the fundamental frequency variation (Vfo); pain presence in the medial pterygoid area and normality in the degree of voice breaks (DVB). CONCLUSION: we found that there was no statistical significance between the alteration in voice parameters and the presence of pain in the evaluated muscles, but some parameters with alteration can have a relation with pain absence; this suggests that other aspects of temporomandibular joint disorder can interfere in the acoustical voice parameters.
Temporomandibular Joint; Facial Pain; Voice Disorders
