Functional Appliances @ DublinBraces.ie

For complex bite problems, Dr O’Donnell might recommend the use of functional appliances. Functional appliances are removable braces that work on the upper and lower teeth at the same time.

What age is best for Functional Braces?

Growing patients from the age of ten upwards as they gain most benefit from this technique. Functional appliances are one of the fastest and most effective methods to correct receding jaws or prominent teeth and need to be worn 22 hours per day. Patients very often transition to either fixed or Invisalign braces to individually straighten their teeth once their treatment with the twin block to fix the bite has ended. The treatment duration in the second phase is much shorter and often avoids the need to extract teeth in the upper arch if the bite has been corrected with a functional brace at the optimal age.

What problems can Functional Braces treat?

A functional brace may be used to correct:

– Very protruding upper front teeth,
– Improve the way back teeth bite together
– Improve your facial profile so that the jaws look more aligned with each other when you look at the face in profile.

A Twin Block functional brace is quite common, when you bite together with this brace in your mouth, the blocks on the braces fit together in a certain way that encourage your teeth to move into the correct bite.