The effect of age and gender on normal temporomandibular joint movement

The active physiological and passive accessory movements of the paired temporomandibular joints (TMJ) of 100 asymptomatic subjects were evaluated. Values were obtained for the active movements of both a young and an old population of asymptomatic males and females. Increasing age significantly affected the range and quality of the movements assessed. Mandibular depression and right lateral deviation were the only movements found to be significantly different between the males and females. The males recorded larger ranges than the females. The results of this study indicate that certain changes associated with increasing age in other synovial joints of the body also occur in the TMJ and that assessment results of the symptomatic TMJ should be compared to the normative data of subjects of the same gender and age.