Comparative study of the therapeutic effect of a systemic analgesic and transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) on post-IMF trismus and pain in Nigerian patients.

OBJECTIVES: To compare the therapeutic effect of paracetamol and Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation (TENS), on post-Intermaxillary Fixation (IMF) trismus, and pain in some Nigerian patients.

PATIENTS AND METHODS: Twenty patients treated for mandibular fractures with IMF were randomly selected into two groups of ten patients each. After the release of IMF, they were started on jaw exercises with the aid of wooden spatulae to overcome trismus due to muscle spasm. Patients in Group I underwent jaw exercises before and after TENS therapy which lasted for 30 minutes while those in Group II had jaw exercises before and 30 minutes after ingestion of 100 mg of paracetamol. Their inter-incisal distances were recorded pre and post intervention.

RESULTS: Analysis of the data showed that for both therapeutic interventions, there was an appreciable gain in mouth-opening which was more prominent for patients with unusual difficulty in mouth-opening initially. However, a comparison between the mean improvements produced by TENS and analgesic revealed no significant difference between the two groups.

CONCLUSION: Both the TENS therapy and paracetamol provided similarly appreciable differences in inter-incisal distances (mouth-opening) after their applications.