Correction of speech in a submucous cleft palate patient

Most of the Patients with cleft palate deformity treated by surgeries acquire speech difficulties. Apart from normal cleft palate cases, a rare condition exists, known as the submucous cleft palate. The submucous cleft palate is also a congenital defect of the palate, formed in the roof of the mouth. The opening of the cleft is covered by the mucous membrane, which is the tissue that covers the roof of the mouth. These types of clefts affect the uvula, which is the long tissue that hangs from the back of the palate. These patients require expert help for their speech to be corrected. The expertise needed is in the form of Submucous speech surgery to correct the muscles of the palate followed by speech therapy. Most commonly speech correction in these types of cases is done by means of Furlow’s double opposing palatoplasty. In this procedure, the muscles of soft palate are lengthened by means of opposing the flaps in Z- pattern. In this procedure, the muscles which did not fuse correctly during their formation, are rearranged and sutured in two layers i.e oral and nasal layers. PRF membrane prepared from the patient’s own blood is used between the oral and nasal.

 

layers to aid in faster healing. This rearrangement helps in forming the sling like the pattern of the muscles that are anatomically normal. This surgery also effectively increases the length of the muscles of the soft palate thus creating an effective seal of nasal structures during the speech. This phenomenon helps the patient in attaining a clearer and better speech outcome. All types of treatments for cleft lip and palate patients including secondary surgeries, revision surgeries, speech surgeries, jaw correction surgeries, speech therapy and required dental treatment for cleft patients are being done at Richardson’s dental & craniofacial hospital under the expert guidance of Dr.Sunil Richardson.