Habit
Term for harmful habits such as thumb sucking, mouth breathing or placing the tongue between the teeth.
Hand wrist radiograph
It’s obsolete nowadays. Orthodontists believed to be able to predict special growth spurts of their young patients making use of hand wrist radiographs. But details given by those radiographs aren’t sufficiently accurate to be of any value so that they’re not useful in orthodontics. Therefore the hand wrist radiograph hasn’t got any benefit for the […]
Headgear (Occipital Pull Headgear)
The Headgear or Occipital Pull Headgear is an external removable appliance that is anchored to the teeth by metal bands. It is connected to a neck- or head-strap in order to put pressure on the upper jaw and the upper teeth. The Headgear pulls the upper teeth backwards thereby creating extra space in the jaw […]
Headgear-Chin Cup
This is an appliance for treating an overbite in the lower jaw (Angle-Class III, mesial occlusion). It consists of a pad on the chin, a cap on the back of the head and strong elastic straps that hold these parts together. The Headgear-Chin Cup is supposed to restrict the growth of the lower jaw. But […]
Herbst-Appliance
The Herbst-Appliance is a fixed brace used for the treatment of the retruded lower jaw (Angle Class II). A typical Herbst-Appliance consists of two metal rails that are cemented to the upper and lower posterior teeth and two telescopic attachments that, once inserted, immediately bring the lower jaw forwards. The Herbst-Appliance allows both forward and […]
Highpull Headgear
An external appliance which is anchored to the upper molars, held together by a strap at the back of the head in order to put pressure onto the upper teeth. The highpull headgear is an effective orthodontic appliance, but it is unpopular with the young patients who do not wear it for as long as […]
Holistic Orthodontics
An attempt of applying alternative medical concepts to orthodontics. Since alternative medicine predominantly relies on placebo effects, which can have no effect in orthodontics, holistic orthodontics is a misconceived concept that patients have to pay for with excessive treatment duration, high social and financial burden and poor quality of results.
Hyrax
Hyrax is the acronym for hygienic rapid palatal expander. The hyrax appliance is an apparatus for rapid palatal expansion (RPE), was developed by W. Biedermann and marketed by Dentaurum. Today, most RPE appliances look pretty much like the hyrax appliance, so the term has lost its meaning