Healthy Start addresses Sleep Disordered Breathing and provides life-changing treatments for our little patients while providing large profits, new patients, and the ability to set your practice apart from your competition.
Healthy Start is a comprehensive, conservative, nonpharmaceutical and non-invasive treatment which uses a child’s own ability to guide and develop their growth and development while helping them gain a quality night’s sleep. Healthy Start is also a great alternative to straightening teeth without braces. This type of treatment is less expensive than braces, more permanent, addresses both health and dental conditions, and usually takes less time. A win-win for life.
Nine out ten children exhibit at least one symptom of Sleep Disordered Breathing, which unfortunately can be easily overlooked, misdiagnosed, and left untreated.
Sleep Disordered Breathing in a child is, as the name implies, a problem involving breathing during sleep. This impacts a child being able to receive the appropriate amount of oxygen and preventing the ability for a child to obtain proper REM sleep, which is essential for proper function of the brain, endocrine and immune systems. It does not matter how much sleep a child receives if they are not able to receive quality sleep.
It is imperative that you as a dental professional are aware of these outward symptoms and are able to educate parents of these potential problems of a child and how they alert us to underlying conditions that need to be addressed. These outward symptoms are strongly linked to sleep and breathing issues. These issues are associated with symptoms such as:
1. ADD / ADHD
2. Bedwetting
3. Nightmares, Night terrors
4. Daytime or nighttime Mouth breathing
5. Snoring
6. Talking in Sleep
7. Tooth grinding
8. Difficulty listening and often interrupting
9. Allergic symptoms including eczema
10. Fidgeting with hands
11. Waking up at night
12. Restless sleep
13. Excessive sweating while asleep
14. Hyperactivity
15. Excessive daytime sleepiness
16. Lack of focusing
17. Difficulty with school subjects of math, science, and spelling
18. Falling asleep during the day
19. Headaches in the morning
20. Speech problems
The Healthy Start sleep questionnaire (seen on next page) can give a parent and the dental professional a glimpse of whether a child has any of the outward symptoms alerting the need to investigate for the root causes of SDB.
Mouth breathing reduces airway by 6mm
The underlying root causes of SDB include: a compromised airway, a narrow upper palate preventing the tongue to rest in the
proper position (in the palate), as well as being a mouth breather rather than a nasal breather. Dentists trained in the Healthy Start program, a division of Ortho-Tain, are expertly trained in identifying these issues and providing sensible and efficient solutions.
Before
After
The Healthy Start system can treat children as young as two years of age. Addressing children during their growing years is critical for permanent change – so timing is of the essence. Waiting can put a child in a position that their growth and development has already occurred and therefore missed their opportunity for permanent change. This is particularly important for a child to experience success in the early years of school. Older children and adults realize that treatment for sleep issues can only occur with a day-to-day treatment offering a Band-Aid type of treatment.
The Healthy Start system also treats the orthodontic conditions such as crowding, overbite, overjet, gummy smiles, crossbites, Class lll, and the lack of coordination between the arches. Healthy Start guides the incoming dentition as well as straightening the teeth allowing the collagenous fiber bundles to develop and anchor the dentition in this position thus preventing relapse. These developed fiber bundles will act as a natural retainer for life.
Dentists can be trained in the Healthy Start technique through courses available in major cities. For a complete listing, please visit www.thehealthystart.com.
Dr. Bergersen taught and lectured throughout the world on growth and development research. He has done extensive research on the use of skeletal age assessments of maturity in relation to facial and body growth and its influence on orthodontic treatment and retention timing.
Visit Thehealthystart.com or call 1.844.KID.HEALTHY for further information and attend a Healthy Start Provider Course. Attend a hands-on course to understand SDB, identify, evaluate and treat cases. Course listings at www.thehealthystart.com.
