When patients return months after receiving their splint with little improvement in jaw opening, they ask how long recovery will take. Research shows splint therapy alone often takes 12 months or more to achieve full recovery.[i] However, recent evidence points to a faster solution: combining splints with structured home stretching to speed up recovery. For dentists treating temporomandibular joint disorder (TMD), this approach can significantly improve outcomes.
Splint therapy alone reduces muscle overactivity, protects teeth, and improves mouth opening. While effective for pain reduction, progress is slow.
Manual physiotherapy with splints offers the best results for quick recovery. Specialist physiotherapists combining hands-on techniques and exercises with splints achieve better outcomes. However, TMD-trained physiotherapists are scarce, NHS waiting lists lengthy, and private treatment costly.
Splint therapy combined with structured home stretching bridges this gap. Adding home-based programmes produces faster results, allowing patients to make visible progress without specialist access.
Limited mouth opening often involves a physical restriction that splints cannot directly address. Studies show that splints plus exercise work better than either alone.[ii] For patients with a maximum opening of below 35mm, who report difficulties eating, each millimetre gained matters. Device-assisted stretching gains 1–2mm weekly increases – much faster than splints alone.
Traditional advice to stretch the jaw with fingers often fails.[iii] Patients don’t get professional feedback, apply pressure without consistency, and lose motivation without clear progress. Effective home stretching needs gradual resistance increases, measurable tracking, and clear routines – things manual stretching cannot provide. Device-assisted stretching solves these problems.
Initial assessment measures baseline maximum opening and identifies the TMD type. For muscle-based TMD or disc displacement with reduction, combination therapy is effective. At four weeks, patients typically show about 5mm improvement.
The OraStretch® Press Rehab System provides controlled, gradual stretching with measurable resistance. Patients follow structured twice-daily routines while tracking weekly progress. Alongside splint therapy, OraStretch® allows dentists to offer combination treatment at a much lower cost than specialist sessions.
The evolution of TMD managementTMD care has evolved toward evidence-based combination approaches that deliver results. While splints remain important, adding structured home stretching speeds up recovery without specialist referrals. Devices such as this provide the steady progression manual stretching lacks, offering patients active, trackable treatment while keeping care accessible and affordable. For dentists and patients alike, combination therapy represents real progress in TMD management.
[i] Akbulut, Nihat, Altan, Ahmet, Akbulut, Sibel, Atakan, Cemal, Evaluation of the 3mm Thickness Splint Therapy on Temporomandibular Joint Disorders (TMDs), Pain Research and Management, 2018, 3756587, 7 pages, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1155/2018/3756587
[ii] Incorvati C, Romeo A, Fabrizi A, et al. Effectiveness of physical therapy in addition to occlusal splint in myogenic temporomandibular disorders: protocol of a randomised controlled trial. BMJ Open. 2020;10(8):e038438. Published 2020 Aug 13. doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2020-038438
[iiI] Bassett S. The assessment of patient adherence to physiotherapy rehabilitation. New Zealand Journal of Physiotherapy. (2003) 31. 60-66.