Craniofacial Imaging and Diagnosis of Temporomandibular Disorders Based on the Vienna Concept

Temporomandibular joint disorders (TMDs) or craniomandibular joint disorders (CMDs) are common in daily dental practice. The term TMDs itself is comprised of multifactorial etiology, and to begin with the possible treatment, one has to have a sound diagnosis. This chapter aims to provide information on the best possible initial functional diagnosis based on the Vienna concept of occlusion using CADIAS, CADIAX, and CADIAS 3D software and the treatment later on. There are different schools of thought on dental occlusion and so is the Vienna concept. In this chapter, you will see first how to diagnose clinically and with instrumental functional analysis to know the type of patient, if it is a simple neuromuscular patient with healthy TMJ or with internal derangement (with or without reducible joint luxations) or a patient with degenerative joint disease. The reason for rigorous diagnosis is that each type of the abovementioned joint disorder has an individual treatment approach based on the Vienna concept of Occlusal Medicine. The right diagnosis is the key to successful treatment. Initially, we try to treat the patient conservatively without surgery in the TMJ region, but there are always exceptions, and if in any case the conservative therapy is not effective, then surgery for TMJ is the last thing to consider.