Malocclusion is not a disease. The subject of malocclusion generally compensates for the functional problems that derive from the malocclusion itself. These compensations are often of long duration and can last a lifetime without the individual being subjected to significant health damages, without the malacclusion transforming into an illness. In other cases, the subject develops damage to the teeth, the gums, the bones, the joint, when, at a given time of their existence, the compensation are less analogous to what happens to a mechanical structure stops working after having worked for years.
Dental malocclusion is an alteration in the development of chewing.
For a chewing organ, this means the functional anatomy unit represented by the teeth, the bones that contain the teeth, the upper jaw and jaw, the temporomandibular joint that connects the mandible to the skull and the muscle that wraps the skeletal structures and works in synergy with them.
Preventing malocclusion means preventing the development of a risk in the mouth-teeth system. Dealing orthodontically with a malocclusion in an asymptomatic patient means the same thing. From this point of view, orthodontic treatment, which in all respects represents a medical intervention with some inherent risks to the treatment itself, must be conducted with the utmost prudence and awareness, as it is addressed to a healthy subject. In light of this consideration, one understands how preventing malocclusion in the early and late stages of childhood can play a particularly valuable role, since prevention can never cause damages and the patient is taking care of something that has not yet become a disease and perhaps may never become one.
