I did an adjustment for a patient’s braces today.
He’s 67.
I don’t think he’s my oldest patient ever but I think he’s the oldest currently in treatment with me (though he’ll be finishing soon, I expect).
Basically if you have healthy teeth and gums and want something fixed that needs orthodontics, we’d be happy to do it. If the teeth and gums aren’t healthy then we’ll advise what needs to be done and work with your dentist to achieve the best outcome.
About 1/3 of my patients are adults.
The other day I wrote about when’s the best age to wear braces. It’s a long answer to a short question.
There’s also a shorter answer.
The best age to wear braces is a combination of when you get the most effective treatment and you want that treatment enough to make it effective.
A while ago I was talking about IOTN — the Index of Orthodontic Treatment Need — and I thought I’d go a little bit deeper into the topic today.
And that means we need to go back in time
Sweden, 1974
Saab stopped producing the Draken fighter aircraft, around about the time that it became the first Airfix model I built.
Sweden was also in the middle of changing its constitution. The new arrangements would make the role of recently crowned King Carl XVI Gustav even more ceremonial — so no invading Denmark unless it goes to a vote.
Olof Palme was Prime Minister. Twelve …
It’s a pretty classic question, fairly obvious to ask so I usually explain it before a patient asks me…. but after I know what sort of treatment they need.
It’s a bit glib, but it depends. I think readers might be looking for more than that, and patients certainly need to know more than that, so I thought I’d go into it with a bit more detail. How long treatment takes will depend on a few different things and some of them are more predictable than others.
Firstly, there are different types of treatment for different problems so depending on what’s wrong with the teeth …