Can SLP treat TMJ-D referral

Q:  If a patient comes with TMJ-D and you find something abnormal on a myo evaluation but the only symptom is TMJ-D can you treat even though TMJ-D isn’t in the scope of SLP?

A:  This would depend upon how they came to you in the first place. Why would someone send you a TMD client that doesn’t have issues related to what we SLPs do? I am confused by this but will try to add some thoughts here. We cannot claim to work on TMJ-D directly. We assess and then treat myo symptoms and the TMD specialist who referred the patient is in charge of changes related to TMD pain/symptoms. We only deal with the actual “myo” part to protect ourselves from going outside of our scope of practice. I hope this helps answer but if not, fill me in and I’ll try again….