Immediate Changes in Objective Tongue Mobility Assessment Following a Standardised Conservative Intraoral Myofascial Intervention: An Exploratory Analysis of Routine Clinical Data

This exploratory, uncontrolled study investigated whether objective tongue mobility measurements change immediately after a brief conservative intraoral intervention, given the clinical use of the Tongue Range of Motion Ratio (TRMR) in treatment and surgical decision-making. Anonymised clinical data were analysed from 20 consecutive participants (17 females and 3 males; aged 6–84 years) receiving routine care in two private orofacial myology and temporomandibular disorder practices. Maximal mouth opening (MMO), tongue tip-to-incisive papilla (TTIP), lingual–palatal suction (LPS), and anterior and posterior TRMR were measured immediately before and after a standardised intraoral myofascial intervention lasting approximately five minutes (YTM® Introductory Protocol) and compared using paired t-tests with Wilcoxon sensitivity analyses. MMO, TTIP, and LPS increased significantly (35.5±7.0 to 40.8±6.5 mm; 26.2±7.8 to 30.4±8.5 mm; 18.8±6.6 to 22.1±8.2 mm; all p< 0.001), with large effect sizes (Cohen's dz values ranging from 0.92 to 1.45). Group-level anterior and posterior TRMR showed minimal change (both p>0.4), although a small number of participants crossed published TRMR classification thresholds. These findings indicate that absolute tongue-mobility measurements can improve immediately after brief conservative intervention, while group-level TRMR remains largely stable, raising the possibility that objective tongue mobility assessment may be influenced by immediately modifiable functional components. As this study had no control group, larger controlled trials are needed to determine whether the changes reflect intervention effects, repeated testing, or participant familiarisation.