Lingual and Maxillary Labial Frenuloplasty with Myofunctional Therapy as a Treatment for Mouth Breathing and Snoring

Chronic mouth breathing may adversely affect craniofacial development in children and may result in anatomical changes that directly impact the stability and collapsibility of the upper airway during sleep. Mouth breathing is a multifactorial problem that can be attributed to structural, functional, and neurological etiologies, which are not all mutually exclusive. While therapeutic interventions (myofunctional, speech and swallowing, occupational, and craniosacral therapy) may address the functional and behavioral factors that contribute to mouth breathing, progress may sometimes be limited by restrictive lingual and labial frenum that interfere with tongue and lip mobility. This case report explores the case of a three-year-old girl with mouth breathing, snoring, noisy breathing, and oral phase dysphagia that was successfully treated with lingual and labial frenuloplasty as an adjunct to myofunctional therapy. Within four days of the procedure, the patient had stopped snoring and demonstrated complete resolution of open mouth breathing. The patient was also observed to have increased compliance with myofunctional therapy exercises. This report highlights the effectiveness of surgical interventions to improve the efficacy of myofunctional therapy in addressing open mouth posture and low tongue resting position.

Open mouth posture and cross-sectional nasal area in young children

A biracial sample of two-hundred ninety-six children were assessed for open-mouth posture (OMP) in the natural environment. In addition, rhinometry was performed on 288 of the youngsters. Means were computed for percent OMP and cross-sectional nasal airway. Results indicated that in general these children exhibited relatively high rates of OMP. Boys displayed significantly greater OMP than girls. However, children exhibiting OMP on 80% of the observation intervals had significantly smaller cross-sectional nasal areas than the youngsters who displayed OMP on fewer than 20% of observation intervals. The implications of the findings were discussed.

Prevalence of oral muscle and speech differences in orthodontic patients

Introduction. Four years of observations of speech and oral muscle patterns in orthodontic patients have led the examiners to expect certain factors to occur frequently. These factors include open-mouth posture, low forward tongue position at rest, linguodental instead of linguaalveolar articulatory placement, linguadental tongue position and lip movement during swallowing, upper lip restriction, mentalis wrinkling, frenum restriction, negative oral habits, and articulation and voice disorders. The emergence of these predictable patterns suggested the need for a systematic study of their occurrence. Thus, the incidences of speech differences, negative oral behaviors, and muscle factors identified as correlates to abnormal oral muscle, skeletal, and dental growth were examined in a retrospective study of the records of 229 orthodontic patients, the entire number of new patients reporting for records appointments to an orthodontic practice within a calendar year.