THE EDITOR'S CORNER

An extraoral appliance with a labial bow will very often reduce an open bite which may vary in degree from a frankly open bite to an open bite tendency. Probably, in a majority of the cases, the appliance interferes with a thumbsucking habit and results in a cure of the habit and a reduction of the opening at the same time. In a certain number of these, the appliance must also redirect the tongue. In spite of the fact that a large number of these patients will tell you that the appliance encourages them to sleep with their mouths open, the fact is that the bite closes.

The bite closes, in spite of the additional fact that a majority of these labial-bow appliances are cervical pull appliances which tend to extrude upper molars and, therefore, open the bite.

It seems pretty clear that we should develop some method of observing patients while they sleep in order to learn something more about oral behavior during sleep and in the presence of various appliances. One possible way of doing this might be to install an infra-red camera routinely and to observe each patient during the night. Of course, we would immediately and incidentally also learn a great deal more about the period of time that extraoral appliances are actually worn.

It would be a monumental invasion of a child's privacy, but it might be justified by what we might learn about what really happens to our appliances and their environment in the never-never land of sleep into which we send them.