It is very difficult for children to wear headgear in these times, when the pace of living is getting faster and faster. A patient would normally be asked to wear a headgear for 12 - 14 hours per day, perhaps from 5pm to 7am the next day. At a boarding school, with fellow classmates around both day and night, this becomes very difficult, and for the non boarders, after school activities are plenteous and almost an every day occurrence.

In addition to the time needed for headgear wear, there has always been a risk of injury from a headgear to the face or eyes and such problems have been reported in the literature.

Most clinical applications for headgear are to reinforce anchorage or distalise upper molars in Class II maloclussions and several techniques are available to circumvent headgear wear.

One such method is the Carriere Distaliser which used light Class II elastics to correct a Class II molar and canine relationship without excessive demands on lower arch anchorage. Light distalising forces (30 gms approx) are applied to the upper canine and this is transferred to the upper molar through a rigid buccal arm which allows this tooth to rotate distally about its palatal root.

Transceptal fibers move the premolars distally and so the whole upper buccal segment may be moved to a Class I relationship with extremely light forces. The majority of patients readily accept intra oral elastics without any hesitation.