BackgroundTo care for terminally ill and dying patients requires a thorough medical education, encompassing skills, knowledge, and attitudes in the field of palliative care. Undergraduate medical students in Germany will receive mandatory teaching in palliative care in the near future driven by recent changes in the Medical Licensure Act. Before new curricula can be implemented, the knowledge of medical students with respect to palliative care, their confidence to handle palliative care situations correctly, their therapeutic attitude, and their subjective assessment about previous teaching practices have to be better understood.MethodWe designed a composite, three-step questionnaire (self estimation of confidence, knowledge questions, and opinion on the actual and future medical curriculum) conducted online of final - year medical students at two universities in Germany.ResultsFrom a total of 318 enrolled students, 101 responded and described limited confidence in dealing with specific palliative care issues, except for pain therapy. With regard to questions examining their knowledge base in palliative care, only one third of the students (33%) answered more than half of the questions correctly. Only a small percentage of students stated they had gained sufficient knowledge and experience in palliative care during their studies, and the vast majority supported the introduction of palliative care as a mandatory part of the undergraduate curriculum.ConclusionThis study identifies medical students' limited confidence and knowledge base in palliative care in 2 German universities, and underlines the importance of providing a mandatory palliative care curriculum.

Family members face multiple burdens while caring for their demented relatives and need more professional support during the course of the disease trajectory as well as in the terminal phase.

Objectives: This study aims to conduct a non-invasive measurement of the cutaneous temperature of selected masticatory muscle regions of volunteers with and without myogenous temporomandibular disorder (TMD), using infrared thermography. Methods: 23 females (10 myogenous TMD volunteers and 13 controls) were recruited and studied. The temperature at the surface of the facial area over the anterior temporalis and masseter muscles was assessed by medical thermography, using regional lateral views and clinical examination. Results: The temperature levels measured at the masseter and anterior temporalis muscle regions in myogenous TMD volunteers (32.85 ± 0.85 and 34.37 ± 0.64 ºC, respectively) were significantly lower (p , 0.05) than those measured in controls (33.49 ± 0.92 and 34.78 ± 0.44 ºC, respectively). Medical infrared imaging indicated a mean difference of 1.4 ºC between the masseter and anterior temporalis regions. Analysis of the comparison between the absolute and normalized mean temperatures was performed using the pairwise comparison of receiver operating characteristic curves, and no statistically significant difference was observed (p . 0.05). The sensitivity and specificity of the thermographic assessment for the masseter region was of 70% and 73%, respectively and for the anterior temporalis region was of 80% and 62%, respectively. Conclusions: This method of evaluating masticatory muscle regions of this preliminary study seems to indicate that it can be used as an aid in complimentary diagnosing of TMDs. Dentomaxillofacial Radiology (2014) 43, 20130440. doi: 10.1259 Cite this article as: Haddad DS, Brioschi ML, Vardasca R, Weber M, Crosato EM, Arita ES. Thermographic characterization of masticatory muscle regions in volunteers with and without myogenous temporomandibular disorder: preliminary results.