10 January 2023

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TongueGym device helps kids, adults

Device is used to perform exercises for dysfunctional tongue

Mary Guiden

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With the start of a new year, people around the world will focus on reaching new goals, including increasing exercise or taking up running, rock climbing, yoga and swimming. But Dr. Eyal Botzer, DMD and director of pediatric dentistry at the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, hopes that people will think more about tongue health. 

He invented the TongueGym, with an aim to make it easier for parents to help treat newborns with a dysfunctional tongue, which restricts movement of the tongue. The device can also be used by adults. Botzer, a specialist in pediatric dentistry with years of experience in neonatal dental and oral anomalies, including craniofacial defects and tongue-tie, spoke with Dentistry33 and shared his thoughts on this “gym” that many people have not yet heard of.  

Q: How did you come up with the idea to create the TongueGym?

Botzer: It started with my youngest daughter being born with tongue-tie. I could see the issues and effect it had on mothers whose babies I had treated, and other children born with tongue-tie. As a dentist educated in a mainstream institute, I hadn’t learned a lot about the condition. This led me to conduct research on tongue-tie and dysfunctional tongue in the Tel Aviv medical center. 

I decided to invent the TongueGym because of a high percentage of parents I saw who abandon or avoid doing tongue exercises, mainly because they are required to do it by putting their fingers in their child’s mouth. These vital tongue exercises can prevent tongue reattachment, but even more important is the main factor for proper tongue mobility and oral motor function. One of the lactation consultants I worked with said: Why don’t you invent something to make tongue exercises easier and more convenient to increase responsiveness? 

Tongue exercises help the tongue stay in the proper place on the roof of the palate when the mouth is at rest The exercises help children born with tongue-tie get better oral function and breastfeed or adults with dysfunctional tongue develop enough strength and mobility for better oral motor function. It essentially strengthens the tongue and allows for improved function.

Q: Who should use the TongueGym, and is it only for children?

Botzer: The TongueGym can help people of all ages. I was inspired to create the device by what I saw in newborns born with tongue-tie. But the purpose of the device is to encourage tongue mobility and strength. 

Lactation consultants and other medical professionals typically would train parents or adults to do tongue exercises using their fingers to lift and push the tongue against the palate. The ergonomic design of the TongueGym allows a person to fit the device under the tongue, with two tips that help support or strengthen the tissue. It’s smaller and much more convenient and efficient than putting a finger in a newborn’s mouth. 

When an adult uses it, the device can be placed under or on top of the tongue, in front of or on the sides of the tongue. There is a huge issue around the world with snoring and some of it is due to issues with a weakened tongue. It can fall backwards while you sleep, touch the soft palate and leads to snoring. Devices like a CPAP can prevent snoring during the night. But strengthening the tongue is treating the root source of the problem. 

If you strengthen the tongue, it reduces snoring. And it’s a daytime treatment, not conducted at night. By strengthening the tongue with the TongueGym and encouraging mobility for 20 minutes a day, you will start seeing results within a month. You can sit in your home office and use it. If you’re more open, you can do it in a traffic jam. We’ve tried to make the exercise regimen easier, fun and more efficient with its ergonomic design. 

Sometimes children and adults have a condition called a tongue thrust, when the tongue presses forward too far in the mouth, resulting in an abnormal orthodontic condition. You need to educate the brain to overcome this condition. It is not necessarily something a person is aware of. You need to create good patterns of function and using the TongueGym will help a person reach the goals prescribed by a clinician to accomplish the tongue exercise regimen. And with that correct function of the tongue, it will help with breathing and prevent orthodontic issues.

Q: What audiences would you like to reach to increase awareness about the TongueGym?

Botzer: We would like to reach more myofunctional and speech therapists, lactation consultants, occupational therapists and dental hygienists. We have already talked with and continue to work with dentists, ear, nose and throat physicians, and pediatricians. 

We love to hear from parents and adults – if you have someone at home snoring. The market for anti-snoring products is as high as $4.2 billion. But for most of the products, they are used at night. Day time use allows for more freedom and it’s more comfortable for end users. 

A person goes to the gym to strengthen their body, but this is a special tool designed for the tongue and oral cavity muscles. It’s part of a regimen of treatment, for new mothers working with a lactation consultant or a speech pathologist or physical therapist. 

Learn more and connect with Dr. Botzer at: https://liper-device.com/