An 81-year-old woman with Parkinson's disease lived with a jaw that had slipped out of its socket and stayed there, leaving her unable to close her mouth or swallow her own saliva normally. What finally fixed it was not a quick push back into place but an operation on both sides of her jaw.
The case was published online Aug. 29, 2026, in the Thai Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery by Pornwit Prapa-anantachai of the Department of Dentistry at Sisaket Hospital in Thailand. The report describes a long-standing temporomandibular joint (TMJ) dislocation treated with bilateral eminectomy and condylectomy, two procedures that remove bone at the hinge where the lower jaw meets the skull.
