amanda with straight smile solutions street smile solutions.com and today we're going to talk about
the functional matrix theory and i know you're like oh no boring growth and development dental
school not interested but i really can't make enough videos on this topic because you as a
dentist need to understand how this works how this affects all your keto patients um
even if you're not seeing kiddos you still should know so because it's basically standard of care
so let me tell you what that is again because even i had to get a refresh on it so the functional
matrix theory was invented or hypothesized by melvin moss and this was back in 1962
and basically it's a phenomenal description of bone growth and what he said and this is his quote
the origin development and maintenance of all skeletal units are secondary compensate
and mechanically obligatory responses to temporarily and operationally prior demands
of the related functional matrices so basically what they're saying in a before they were thinking
that everything was genetic right the way our bones grow whether we have a small job big jaw
long jaw you know etc narrow jaw wide jaw is fully genetic okay there's nothing that our
environment could do that was the original theory before 1962 then what dr moss realized is that
the environment does play a factor there's a partial factor by genetics and a partial factor
by environment with any type of bony growth and i mean that's true i mean look at for example think
about chinese feet you know when they used to do foot binding they people would have a normally
your feet would grow to a certain size unless there was some type of environmental factor
that prevented it from doing what it was supposed to do per the genetics okay so this totally plays
into orthodontics 100 and dentistry and airway remember the pallet the top top of the mouth is
the floor of the nose so if the tongue so we're breastfeeding here if the tongue doesn't stay in
the right position where it's supposed to be as an infant even in utero as an infant as a small
child up to age three four five but starting as a baby because the child isn't feeding properly
then or has habits the face does not grow properly and yes with orthodontics we can
make some modifications if the patient comes in early if before puberty has finished but it's
a heck of a lot easier just to fix things when they're little it's so much easier and i think so
few parents are aware of how the functional matrix theory works and how this will affect their child
and you as any type of dentist needs to anytime you have a kid come in needs to be
saying this see see it say it you know i see my friends on facebook all the time with kiddos and
they're not dentists they're not in the healthcare and i'm just looking at these oral habits that
they have in these photos and i'm dying i'm dying you know and i i let them know i mean
i sent him a message i'm like hey look you got to get your kid to an orthodontist i'm so sorry
i don't want to be the one that tells you this you know you live in another country i actually
did this recently with one friend of mine and she was not happy um you know we're not super
close friends but we're facebook friends but i mean i was just watching the child's face it
was about maybe six or seven grow down and drown and the open bike getting bigger and bigger in
the photos and i'm horrified and i said look i i don't want anyone to tell you this but i think
your child might have airway issues you know please please please get your child to an ent
to an orthodontist don't just go to one person i'm quite sure your child has airway issues i
basically said or i mean our habits or one of those we need to get this fixed like asap so um
i said i i it's bothering me every time i see a picture i just gotta let you know and i you know
i wouldn't be a friend if i didn't tell you that so um yeah i mean that's pretty much it remember
tongue position tongue should always even in a baby and even a kiddo should be on the roof of
the mouth behind the front teeth not on the front teeth it should be resting there at all times hard
to tell in a kid right but if you're seeing if the kid is only bottle feeding i mean you're probably
gonna have an issue you know especially even worse if they're doing pacifiers past a few months
even worse if they're doing thumbs fingers stuffed animals in their mouth anything that goes in their
mouth besides food and if you're doing sippy cups you know past age six seven eight months same
thing all these things will affect the growth and development of the child again easily reversible
if you catch it early there's all kinds of appliances they can tooth pillows they can start
sleeping with at night of course habit cessation devices you can start those at 18 months two years
so i just really really wanted to remind you how this works and have you feel comfortable with
basically explaining this in a scientific way to every single one of your parent patients um
and and yeah i mean really you can even do a growth and development screening on all one and
two-year-olds in your practice three four five um we're not calling this an orthodontic exam we're
calling a growth of facial growth and development exam um and just try to nip some habits in the bud
as early as possible you can offer these procedures to parents for the most part i mean
most will be will be appreciative and some might be not appreciative but you know what you've done
your job you've done what you need to do that's standard of care you note it in the chart and
when they come back in a year or six months you revisit it each time and that's the main
thing you can only do what you can do so all right thanks so much hopefully i created some awareness