Revista de higiene y salud bucal

Abstracto

Why Bother with Muscles?

Sandra Coulson

Introduction: The enormous impact that muscles have on cranial development and dentition from infancy through old age has been largely overlooked by the dental community until recently. While some early practitioners like Dr. Harvey Stallard, from the Angle School of Orthodontia in 1927, found that at birth 2% of children had facial malformations, at two years it was 5 % and at age 17, there were 50% who had significant malformations of their orofacial muscles and teeth. His information was not deemed significant. Narrow Arch width, Nasal airway blockage, Lingual/labial frenulum restrictions, severity of dental arch formation, neurological and/or muscle involvement, allergies or other medical conditions, and medications which create breathing issues were simply not a primary part of dental assessments.