How can the dental hygienist become involved?
Some dental hygiene programs include a course or lecture in orofacial myofunctional therapy just to teach the hygienist to recognize this disorder. Other programs have adopted a program with actual clinical exercises to treat patients with a myofunctional problems (Loma Linda, for example). Most programs have little or no information about the field. After 30 years of practicing and teaching courses in OMT, I feel the profession of OMT should become a specialty of dental hygiene, just as orthodontics is a specialty of dentistry. Speech pathologists also have little or no training in their college programs, but do receive referrals for tongue thrust therapy. They are usually uncomfortable doing treatment and get limited results unless they have taken a postgraduate course. Currently, research in Brazil shows that oral myology exercises can reduce moderate sleep apnea by 39%.6 This is very exciting because it will bring the medical profession and oral myology together to treat this horri
