Dental splint trial to continue

Posted on 22 October 2016

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The real need for a high quality clinical trial

At Tourettes Action we sometimes get asked questions about dental splints or oral orthotics as they are known in the US. It has been a while since we had any updated information about this as there is an ongoing trial in the US.

At present there are no firm results to report. The trial is currently ongoing and is expected to end this year. You can read more about the trial HERE.

*March 2019 - still awaiting update from researcher in the US*

However as you can see this topic was discussed at the TA conference 2016 conference in London.

The trial is still ongoing and as the initial sample size was so small we are waiting to hear about the full results and when it is published we can, along with the whole scientific community gauge whether this is something useful.

The extract from the conference is below:

Here a researcher called John Walkup (from the Cornell Weill Medical Center), presented the methodology and preliminary results from a TSA sponsored study of an oral orthotic device (an occlusal splint). This treatment evolved out of observations from the dental community that dental orthotics reduce tics anecdotally, with an underlying hypothesis that TS is caused by a brainstem response to dental factors rather than being a genetic neurodevelopmental syndrome (Sims and Stack, 2009). This hypothesis and corresponding treatment approach did not gain initial traction amongst neuropsychiatrists. However, patients and parents in a number of countries have been willing to try occlusal splints, sometimes at significant expense, leading to a real need for a high quality clinical trial..

Any questions to Seonaid Anderson

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