What is meant by Orofacial Myofunctional Therapy?

Myofunctional Therapy (or) Orofacial Myofunctional Therapy is a 12-week therapeutic program that aims at strengthening the facial muscles.

The treatment involves a combination of physical therapy exercises and breathing exercises to eliminate problems caused by orofacial myofunctional disorders. It focuses on increasing the muscles’ coordination so that sufferers’ mouths can develop proper chewing, speaking, and swallowing patterns.

What is meant by Orofacial Myofunctional Disorder?

Orofacial Myofunctional Disorders refers to deformities in the muscles of your face and mouth. It primarily occurs when odd dental habits (eg: prolonged thumb sucking), airway obstructions interfere with the development and functionality of orofacial structures like facial skeletal growth.

Thus OMD directly or indirectly is responsible for various disorders in your mouth and face.

What are the oral problems caused by Orofacial Myofunctional Disorder?

OMD is also an initiation factor for various dental disorders, and odd oral habits. Important things to notify are:

• Tongue Thrusting (tends to incorrect swallowing pattern)
• Sleep apnea
• Bruxism (Teeth Grinding)
• Mouth Breathing
• Problems with the jaw alignment
• Speech problems
• Bite problems
• Facial pain
• Difficulty swallowing

In many cases, the orofacial myofunctional disorders affect saliva flow so that the sufferers are at high risk of cavities, gum diseases, and various oral microbial attacks.

When do we need Oromyofunctional therapy?

Your dentist will recommend whether you need myofunctional therapy or not after assessing the issues.

For instance, your dentist would look for how you rest your tongue to diagnose the underlying problem in difficult tongue movements. An ideal tongue posture involves the tip of the tongue press against the roof of the mouth and resting behind the teeth.

When your dentist diagnoses your tongue is resting at an atypical position due to muscular differences, he /she will recommend oromyofunctional therapy. Similarly, it is also prescribed for kids who have developed problems like speech impediments and others due to OMD.  

In essence, dental doctors go for this exercise program when they found that fixing certain facial and mouth abnormalities happened due to odd dental habits or OMDs. Besides strengthening the facial muscles, myofacial therapy has the objective of training the muscles to rest in a natural way. So it is mandatory to do those exercises to break such poor oral habits.

How Does Myofunctional Therapy Work?

As discussed earlier, oral myofunctional therapy involves physical exercises to streamline the facial muscles. Your dentist would prescribe appropriate exercises once the underlying issue is diagnosed.

For instance, your dentist would suggest the following myofunctional therapy tongue exercises to refrain the muscles around your tongue or break tongue thrusting habit:

• Push Up the Tongue
• Touch Nose
• Touch Chin
• Push Tongue Right
• Roll Tongue
• Click the Tongue
• Push the Tongue Against a Spoon
• Hold a button
• Hold a Spoon

The exercises your dentist would recommend vary depending on the goals like normalizing the tongue’s resting position, eliminating habits like thumb sucking, or strengthening the muscles.

Bottom line

Dentists prefer myofacial therapy when they want to rejuvenate the orofacial muscles thereby normalizing them to rest in their positions. You know that oral concerns differ for every person hence dental doctors create a tailor-made plan to meet your needs. All you want to do is, doing the prescribed exercises at least twice a day. They are simple, and fun to do. They will deliver excellent solutions more than you expect.