Computer-aided Examination Reports in Clinical Functional Analysis of TMD

Clinical functional analysis is the first step in the diagnostic cascade in the diagnosis of craniomandibular dysfunction (CMD). This examination comprises palpation of the muscles, auscultation of noises in the temporomandibular joint, registration of jaw mobility as well as the search for dysfunctional contact relations in static and dynamic occlusion. The structured evaluation of these findings enables an initial diagnosis to be made as the basis for further diagnostics and therapy. Because of the complexity of the material, both the referring dentists and the patients expect a meaningful examination report. However, writing it is extremely time-consuming. New software for the semi-automatic generation of such illustrated medical reports has therefore been developed to reduce internal costs and provide quality assurance. The CMD medical report assistant (dentaConcept) imports the examination data and initial diagnoses through a standardized interface from the dentaConcept diagnostic software CMDfact. The CMD medical report assistant assigns matching texts to the findings on the basis of random number generators and combines these findings-dependent texts with illustrations of the most important findings as well as standard texts. The software transfers the multi-page examination report to the standard Microsoft Word for Windows word processing program, saves the data by means of an individualizable file name generator and uses the Word functions for the color printout. Keywords: clinical functional analysis, craniomandibular dysfunction, computer-aided recording of findings, diagnostics computer-aided therapy planning, medical report writing, practice software, random number generator, compatibility