Digitalization of functional diagnostics

In functional diagnostics, dentists gather numerous findings by performing different functional examinations and tests, and establish as differentiated a diagnosis as possible by arranging the individual pieces to produce an overall picture. In this respect, functional diagnostics is basically medical data processing. However, because one cannot 'see' the functional disorder itself, the clinician must gather and evaluate special findings in order to capture the functional situation. As this process generates many individual pieces of data, it is very useful to transfer the data to a digital information processing system. This has given rise to an emerging field of digital dental functional diagnostics which, like digital dentistry for the fabrication of dental restorations, exploits the considerable benefits of digitalization. This article describes the current status and implementation in individual examinations of digital dental functional diagnostics and the options gained from this approach. Keywords: articulator programming, centric relation records, condylar position analysis, clinical functional analysis, functional jaw movement analysis, manual structural analysis, temporomandibular disorders (TMD), tests for orthopedic cofactors, tests for psycho