Peter Joby
HOD, Dept of Pedodontics
Annoor Dental College
Received: 1-07-2023
Revised: 3-07-2023
Accepted: 12-07-2023
Address for correspondence: Dr Joby Peter, Professor and HOD, Dept of Pedodontics, Annoor Dental College, Muvattupuzha
Email- jobspeter77@gmail.com
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How to cite this article: Peter J. Biofunctional myotherapy. A new boom in early management of malocclusion in children. J Oral Biomed Sci 2023; 2(2):
Biofunctional myotherapy – A new boom in early management of malocclusion in children
Devapriya is a 15 year old child who had visited a dentist for her dental problem. She had to undergo a pot puri of dental procedures and was fed up with the dentist. Her story begins when she was 7 years of age when her mother took her to a local dentist for a check-up. The dentist advised her permanent teeth are crooked and coming out and she need an appliance to correct it. Initially her dentist recommended an appliance to wear at night (oral screen) which she couldn’t do it and so her mother took her to another dentist who recommended another appliance and the saga continued. Parents became doubtful due to varying treatment plan and appliances by dentists and discontinued the treatment and now she is 15 years of age and need to correct her maligned teeth which require extensive orthodontic treatment.
The point here is was that developing malocclusion was preventable to become a worse condition?
Is it the patient or parents to be blamed?
Is the dentist the reason for her current condition?
A solution to this kind of problem is to adopt the upstream and down stream model of management of a disease condition. For example type 2 diabetes is always better to treat early than wait for it to become more uncontrollable. There are various preventive strategies to reverse diabetes if we diagnose and treat at the early stages.
This applies to dental disease also. At the initial stage (upstream of a river at its beginning point) if we can diagnose the condition and predict the future nature of the condition, we can reverse or prevent it from worsening (downstream of a river where it meets the sea).
Biofunctional myotherapy is a concept that focuses on the root cause of a disease rather than the condition itself. It comprises of detailed gathering of patients current condition and an in-depth look to find the root cause with various diagnostic tools. Once identified, we have to formulate a comprehensive treatment plan that suits the best for the patient. In this approach we need to take various external factors also into consideration like patient age, compliance, cost factor, timing etc.
The bottom line of Biofunctional myotherapy is to provide an accurate and best possible treatment option for the patient to reduce maximum relapse or recurrence with long term stability.