14 DAY TRIAL // Wrinkles appear because of the loss of volume to the face, therefore the initial idea of performing a facelift by simply stretching the skin seemed like a good one. Nevertheless, new studies now come to show that surgeons should go deeper than that when performing a facelift, by also improving bone structure with the help of implants, LiveScience informs.
The more recent studies come to reinforce what was already suspected: bone is no longer seen as something that can’t be altered and improved for a more youthful appearance. As we age, it’s not just the skin that loses its elasticity and that leads to the appearance of wrinkles, since the face too gets less support from its very own bone structure. Because of this, patients who have a facelift – the traditional way – don’t look as they did when they were young, which is to be expected of them since wrinkles have been duly eliminated.
“In the study, 60 men and 60 women were divided into three equal groups: young (20-40), middle (41-64) and advanced age (65 and older). Using three-dimensional computed tomography (CT) scans, they found older people had receded chins and short jaws in comparison to younger people. The study was published in the Journal of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery in January. A follow-up study, also of 120 people, showed that cheekbones and the upper-rim of the eye-socket also sink in as one ages, leaving cheeks to sag and the brow to droop. These findings were presented at a conference for the American Society of Plastic Surgeons last week,” LiveScience says of recent research that shows bone implants should be made for a more youthful countenance.
“‘It is very well-known that skin and (facial) fat atrophy as we age,’ said lead researcher Dr. Robert Shaw, Jr., also at the University of Rochester. But in case that wasn’t depressing enough, the researchers found that jaw, cheek and eye-socket bones are also worn down by the march of time. ‘But patients would come back from a traditional face-lift, and we would look at pictures of them when they were young and they didn’t look like them,’ Shaw said. ‘We needed to look at what else was going on with aging,’ he said,” the same publication further informs.
Thus, surgeons came to the conclusion that facelifts shouldn’t be just skin-deep, if one may be allowed the pun. Besides stretching the skin and thus eliminating wrinkles, such a procedure should also include bone implant, which would improve the current “scaffold” and thus make the patient look more like they did when they were young.