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  • Q&A with Australian Health Practitioners

    What is orthodontics?

    Related Topics
    Dentistry Oral Health
    • 2 answers
    • Dr Paul Coceancig
    • Dr Rohan Wijey
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  • Dr Paul Coceancig

    Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon

    I am a specialist oral & maxillofacial surgeon based in Sydney and Newcastle, Australia. I graduated in medicine from the University of Otago, and in … View Profile

    There are essentially four types of orthodontics and orthodontic styles of treatment…

    1. Functional appliance orthodontics, where jaw splints and expansion devices are used to help pull several teeth and the bone that surrounds teeth-groups into different positions in children. Quad-helix appliances and Twin-Blocks are examples of such devices.

    2. Braces which are brackets and wires that can slightly turn and straighten teeth relative to each other, in order to align, or straighten them. Damon, Begg, and Edgewise are examples of such bracket systems. Every orthodontist has a favourite system.

    3. Mouth-guard style appliances, that can move, twist and align teeth, much the same way as brackets and wires, but where the appliances are removable (like a mouth guard). Invisalign is a popular system.

    4. Orthodontic surgery is where physical surgery is employed to help straighten, align and intermesh teeth. Surgery can directly help move teeth into new positions, or to attach orthodontic brackets to help extrude impacted teeth by chains and elastics. Orthognathic surgery is also available to dramatically straighten jaws, and achieve balanced bites, often in conjunction with an orthodontist's use of brackets and wires.

    To find out more on jaw surgery to correct the various types of dental malocclusion (or bad-bites), visit www.myjawsurgery.com.au

    Paul Coceancig @ Profilo Australia

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  • Dr Rohan Wijey

    Dentist

    Dr Wijey was born in Sydney, and then moved to the Gold Coast, Queensland, where he graduated from Griffith University in Dentistry in 2009. At … View Profile

    Added to the list is:

    Myofunctional Orthodontics: This works on the muscular causes of malocclusion. The very first myofunctional appliance was the Frankel functional regulator invented in 1960s East Germany.


    Myofunctional Therapy (exercises working on the muscular casues of malocclusion) rose to prominence in the 1970s especially and recently again a lot of research is coming out of Europe and Sth America (use Google Scholar) 

    I lecture for Myofunctional Reserach Corporation (MRC) which has invented removable myofunctinoal orthodontic appliances that are now used in 100 countries and by 4 governments in their national public health systems.

    Visit Myobrace.com or Myoresearch.com for more info

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