Myofunctional therapy in predominant mouth breathers

The children with mouth breathing were submitted to the speech-language, orthodontic and otorhinolaryngological evaluations to confirm their adequacy in the inclusion and exclusion criteria. To reach the objectives of this study, they were submitted to clinical, anthropometric (the height of the upper lip, corresponding to the distance between the subnasale and the stomion points and the height of the filter, corresponding to the distance between the subnasale and the upper lip points) and electromyographic (upper and lower orbicularis oris muscles at rest, during isometry -maximum voluntary contraction, sucking, swallowing and speech) evaluation. The study collected data in three different measurements sessions. 1. at the initial evaluation for both groups 2. only for the study group, at the partial evaluation after 10 days of daily exercises and at the final evaluation, after 40 days of intervention 3 times per week. The maximum time of 40 days was chosen based on Saxon and Schneider (1995), who stated that some important physiological changes are observed in the first 6 to 8 weeks of muscular training. After the initial evaluation, the parents or tutors and the children of the study group were oriented about the use the labial exerciser with a trained speech-language therapist. First, it was recommended two exercises, one isotonic (open and close the mouth slowly, including lips and jaw, in order to achieve a complete closing of the Labial Exerciser) and one isometric (similar to the anterior movement but keeping the labial exerciser closed for about 30 seconds). They should be done in a frequency of 4 times to the day, with 15 repetitions each exercise. The 15 times was chosen based on the frequency of 10 to 20 times proposed by the Jardini (1999) that it carried through study with similar methodology of this . The break between the exercises should be the same time of exercise period, that is, 30 seconds. The electromyographic reevaluation with 10 and 40 days, followed the same conditions of the initial evaluation.