Abstract
The patient was a 48-year-old woman who had sustained a powerful blow to her face in around 1986. Suffering from persistent disturbances affecting her ability to open the mouth, the patient visited our hospital on December 1, 2007, reporting mouth-opening difficulty as a chief complaint. Upon observation, we noted an old fracture of the left mandibular condyle. However, since the disc position of the left TMJ was normal, the patient was diagnosed as having right-side TMD type IIIb and was treated conservatively. When mandibular movements were measured, we observed relatively minor anterior displacement for the ipsilateral condyle in the closed jaw position, significant posterior displacement during lateral movements for both condyles, and incoordination of left and right condylar movements at the late stage of mouth opening.
