A Smile After Headache

Derived from recent research on genome anthropology “A smile after a headache” it is a diagnostic method that uses analogous techniques to those that allow to highlight and mute gene effect. In particular the integrins and sarcoglycans have expressed themselves progressively lesser during evolution, determining a pathology “the headache of cervical origin” that results the most widespread in the Western world. It has a cost of 100 billion dollars a year in the USA. A cost comparable only with that of cancer.With the term “Temporo-mandibular disorders” is intended the whole of signs and symptoms that involve the temporo-mandibular articulation, masticatory muscles and connected ligaments. Compared to other similar syndromes, the one taken in exam is surely one of the most difficult to treat, both because of the complexity of the anatomical structures involved and also because of the psychological implications found in patients affected by chronic pain problems. Such a symptomatology is unleashed or at least incurred from psychological conditions of particular emotional overload. The physician that desires to treat patients afflicted with TMD must therefore get involved with the patient, associating a perfect knowledge of the anatomy and physio-pathology of the concerned district, an equivalent awareness of the psychological implications that he may have to confront. It has been shown that if the patient feels followed with empathy by the physician, the probability of healing during the therapeutic procedures increases. The Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) is an instrument used that visually represents the various characteristics of the pain that a subject believes to feel (frequency, trend, disability, subjective importance of the symptom). If it is true that the mode of compilation and registration of the different types of V.A.S. are absolutely comparable among themselves, the particular characteristic under investigation varies according to the question asked to the patient. The most common one is without a doubt the one used concerning the profoundness of the pain perceived, to the point that when speaking of VAS is intended by definition to indicate the “VAS intensity of pain”. Such a characteristic is represented by a line, usually 10cm long, in which an extremity indicates the absence of pain, while the other represents the worst conceivable pain. The patient fills in the scale, tracing on the line a sign that represents the level of pain felt.

The program “A smile after a headache”, opens considerable prospects for what concerns the future of gnathology. First of all, compared to the printed VAS that is handed monthly to the patient and also checked monthly by the physician, the program “A smile after a headache” avoids that the patient fills in a VAS of one day having at eye's length the preceding VAS risking to confuse the true values of the perceived pain of that particular day. Furthermore, through the possibility of daily evaluation of the pain trend of the patient and through the creation of a graph related to the intensity of the symptom, interestingpossibilities are offered to the attending physician: