A linguagem da dor: um estudo dos enunciados de sujeitos portadores de disfunção temporomandibular

Abstract

This thesis was to study the particulars of the subjects carrying Temporomandibular Disorder (TMD) on the experience of pain in their lives. This was possible by examining the perception of the subjects in relation to previous professional approaches, investigating the existence of conceptual metaphors that describes the expression of pain and then categorizing them and understanding the individual impacts to be bearer of TMD. It was a qualitative and exploratory study, carried out from June to August, 2007. Have participated 18 subjects of both sexes with age ranging from 14 to 64 years with muscle skeletal temporomandibular pain, assisted in the Center for Orofacial Pain Control of the School of Dentistry at the University of Pernambuco Brazil, selected from the Simplified Anamnestic Questionnaire DMF. For the constitution of the corpus were held semi-structured interviews that were recorded and later transcribed. The discussion of the results was based on analysis of the content and it was divided into three parts. The first referred to the representation that the subjects have of previous treatments and pointed to an attitude of health professionals as predominantly routing the patients to other services without explanation. In the second part were discussed data describing of the experience of pain and it was showed the existence of conceptual metaphors, which can be categorized into orientacional, ontological and personified. Finally, in the third part of the analysis/discussion of the results, were investigated the general and specific impacts caused by the pain in the lives of the subjects. It was found that the TMD causes general impacts predominantly in the leisure and work activities. And among specific impacts, causes relevant inconvenience to chew, to yawn, to make oral hygiene, smiling or laughing, and talking. It was concluded that there is a gap in the process of interaction between health professionals and the subjects carrying TMD, and that the Science of Language, through the study of metaphors, may become an important resource for understanding the experience of pain, assisting in the mitigation of impacts caused by pain in the lives of subjects