Whole body health through personalized diagnosis and non-surgical correction of jaw /neck alignment = Physiologic Neuro-Muscular Dental paradigm
by Prabu Raman,
Assoc Prof, DDS, MICCMO, LVIM, D-ABDSM
Abstract
Medical diagnosis and treatment are often disjointed and hyper focused on management of a symptom or group of symptoms related to an organ or a biological system. Much investment and research are dedicated to pharmacological management for a life time that do not always result in quality-of-life outcomes but simply extend the chronological age. The last decade of one’s life expends an extraordinary proportion of the resources without a concomitant improvement of quality of life.An otolaryngologist is not consulted on vision problems; nor an ophthalmologist on ear congestion. A cardiologist treating atrial fibrillation and poor cardiac ejection fraction is often unaware of that patient’s Temporo-Mandibular Disorder or Cranio-Cervical Mandibular Dysfunction. After all a TMD / CCMD patient probably consults with a dentist for her “TMJ” symptoms. Can there be a whole-body approach of diagnosis and treatment that strives to reveal and address the root causes of these seemingly disconnected symptoms and organ systems? Can such an approach help correct these root causes early enough in life to prevent most of these diseases later in life?I submit that this gap between dentistry and medicine leaves a ‘Black Hole’ that may be filled through a Physiologic Neuro-Muscular Dental paradigm. Such an approach would address airway and swallowing of an infant through jaw development of a child and adolescent in preventing many of these problems later in life. It can also be useful in correction of jaw and neck alignment of an adult which affects airway as well as whole body alignment resulting in chronic pain with various medical diagnostic labels such as migraine, headaches, Sleep Breathing Disorders including Obstructive Sleep Apnea, Fibromyalgia etc.This lecture will present an outline of PNMD paradigm supported by clinical case histories spanning decades.