How old is too old for braces and orthodontic treatment?

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Years ago many people used to think that orthodontic treatment was only for young kids, and that's not the case today. A gentleman quoted a recent study that came out, and in that study, he said that the smile is the first thing that people notice about people today, period. It used to be the eyes, but now it is the smile. And, I see so many adults that are seeking treatment today, especially with all the technology we have today. In our practice it is not uncommon at all for kids to come in for treatment, and the parents to come in for treatment. We will see mom and dad. We recently had a lot of grandmothers coming in. We have daughters getting married and grandma's getting braces because she wants a beautiful smile. The daughters want beautiful smiles for mom. And often times as we age our self esteem, you know, life changes occur. Either, death of a spouse or death of a family member. We all go through emotional changes as we age. We wish we could stay looking young forever but that's not the reality in life. But, it's amazing that the subtleties, that when you take someones smile that looks old because, teeth are crooked and malformed and misshaped, and you straighten teeth and give them a beautiful smile that follows the curvature of the lip, it really gives them that youthfulness back that they long desire for over the years. So, adult treatment is very very common today, and definitely becoming more common as we progress.

How old is too old? I say no one is too old to have orthodontic treatment. We have, as I mentioned, patients into the 80's that have come in and sought treatment. Sometimes there are limitations and challenges with patients of that age, but there's always something that we can do to improve the smile. We may not ever get perfection and that's important, because, one case sticks into my mind when we talk about "how old is too old," and I literally had an eighty year old woman walk into my office one day, and she brought a photo in, of when she was 25 years old, and she said, "Dr. Schaefer, can you make my smile look like this?" And, she had a beautiful smile already, had already had orthodontic treatment three or four times, had a really good finish orthodontically, what we would consider a good finish, but just had some alignment problems, just minor alignment problems with her teeth. And I tell all of our patients that sometimes orthodontics is about the microns, it's the the minutia stuff, that you know really, is an artistic part of being an orthodontist. And, it's not really about being a mechanic. We're good mechanics about moving teeth and putting things where we want them, but there's an artistic part, which is usually the finishing stage and how we, you know, detail things at the end of treatment.


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