Treatment Indications
WHAT TREATMENT AT WHAT AGE?
There are generally 4 main categories of orthodontic treatment:
✪ The interceptive treatment
✪ Interception treatment followed in some cases by a second phase of treatment
✪The full treatment
✪The adult orthodontics with or without surgery
✪ We can add as a recent distinction the invisible treatments (Lingual and Invisalign) in opposition to conventional treatments, that are more visible with conventional braces.
COMMON PROBLEMS / TREATMENT INDICATIONS
1. Anterior cross bite
Risk of excessive growth of the lower jaw, dental wear, gingival recession.
2. Incisor protusion
Risk of incisal trauma and fracture of the anterior teeth.
3. Impacted Canine
Risk of resorption of the lateral incisor.
4. Palatal trauma with deep bite
The lower teeth bite and traumatize the gum on the palate.
5. Spaces
Between the incisors greater than 3mm (prevents eruption of the canines)
6. Dental agenesis
Decide on the extraction of the baby tooth or its retention on the arch depending on the occlusion and the skeletal pattern
7. Presence of a supernumerary tooth
Its extraction allows a normal evolution of the teeth blocked in their eruption by its presence
8. Open bite
(Lack of contact between the front teeth)
Often due to thumb sucking, its intuption at the time when the permanent incisors erupt allows spontaneous correction of the open bite and deformation of the dental arch.
9. Too narrow upper jaw
In the absence of early treatment, bone asymmetry may develop. Orthodontics alone will no longer be able to resolve the anomaly and additional surgery may be required at the end of adolescence. Early treatment allows better nasal breathing and thus better growth of the upper jaw.
Depending on the patient's age and the type of dental problem, we sometimes carry out an interception treatment only (sometimes called the first treatment phase) or two-phase orthodontic treatment (see child orthodontics section). If the patient is mature enough (12 years and over in general) we then resort to full treatment which is feasible in a single phase of treatment.
We use removable and fixed devices partial to help us normalize the dental arches in order to allow as much as possible a normal eruption of the permanent teeth to come.
Once the first phase of treatment finished, we let the child grow and continue its dental development. An annual follow-up will be done until the age of 11-12 years to verify if the teething and the growth of the jaws is done correctly.
Sometimes the interception phase alone will be enough to correct the malocclusion. Otherwise, a new evaluation will be made and if necessary a new treatment plan will be proposed to you if necessary. Note well, and this will be explained to the consultation that the costs related to the interceptive treatment only cover this phase of the treatment and that if a so-called 2nd phase treatment is necessary around 11-12 years, a new financial agreement will be taken. It is nevertheless important to note that a treatment in two phases will not necessarily cost more than a complete treatment at the age of 12 years and will often allow to be able to treat in a more conservative way (we often do not need to extract permanent teeth through interceptive therapy).