Give HK Cleft Lip and Palate Families a Smile

Chinese University Students Interviewed HKACLP Members

Twenty odd first-year students from the Jockey Club School of Public Health and Primary Care, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, visited our centre to interview members of our association on 23 October 2022.  The interviewees were three patients and their parents.  They shared with the students the problems of cleft lip and palate, the treatment they had received so far and their life stories, so as to increase the students’ understanding of cleft anomalies,that may help them in their future work.  The students come from the Departments of Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences.

HKACLP Volunteers Helping Other NGO Flag Selling

The Association encourages its members to care about the disadvantaged in the community and serve people in need in different modes.  In this way, apart from being service takers, they may also become service providers.  The Association organize activities jointly with other non-government-organizations offering help and care to the needy. Due to Coronavirus Pandemic, most of the voluntary services were cut.  Nevertheless, on 27 November, 22 volunteers of the association assisted in the Flag Day - flag selling activities of Hong Kong Society for Rehabilitation

Harmonica Class for CLP Children

Children with cleft lip and palate have poor oral muscle activity, which affects their eating and speech.  At the same time, the repair scars affect their upper jaw development, causing underbite problem.  

Playing harmonica is the most suitable oral muscle exercise for children with cleft lip and palate, which can promote their oral muscle control and upper lip activity that can improve their phonation, articulation and eating, and also help their jawbone grow, thereby improving the problem of malocclusion.

With the assistance of the Hong Kong Academy of Harmonica Arts, the Association organized "Harmonica Class for Beginners", hoping to promote children's oral muscle movement and cultivate their interest in music.

Originally the Association would hold "the 30th Anniversary Charity Concert" on 24 January 2022 (Sunday) at the Theatre, Hong Kong City Hall, and the children participated in the harmonica training class might perform in the concert.  However, as there was a surge of Omicron cases since mid-December and the government's preventive measures had much been tightened.  Thus the concert had to be postponed to a later date.

Links:

• HKACLP Website

Providing information of Craniofacial Centers Abroad

For cleft anomalies, medicine is not required.  Instead, the patients need to undergo a few surgeries including primary lip and palate repairs, alveolar bone graft, jaw surgeries and secondary lip & nose revisions.  Besides, the patients may also need speech therapy, regular dental care, ENT follow-ups and orthodontics. 

The treatment of cleft lip and palate is complicated which involves several specialties and there are two phases of treatment, i.e. namely the primary and the secondary one, which altogether lasts for more than twenty years, starting from infancy to adulthood.  Thus the patients have to attend incessant follow up consultations then they can receive the entire course of treatment.

However, since mid of the year 2020, quite a number of our member families are planning for migration to other countries in a short span of time.  To migrate to an utterly new place, the parents have to struggle with living places, language, schools, jobs, integration into the society...

To give a hand to these parents and to ensure that CLP children receive continuous treatment in the new living place, HKACLP provides to the parents, contact details of the Craniofacial Centers of the most popular countries for migration, namely the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and the United States so that they can seek for the right hospitals to continue their CLP children’s cleft treatment without a break or delay.

Zoom Workshops for Dental Hygiene

CLP patients may have dental problems liked misplaced teeth, missing teeth, and extra teeth erupting behind normal teeth.  Their teeth are generally hypoplastic and of unideal quality, making the teeth more likely to decay.  As cleft lip and palate can make oral hygiene more difficult, there is an increased rate of cavities. In addition, insufficient growth of upper jaw may result in underbite which in turn can affect the patient's speech.  Therefore,dental dygiene is very important to CLP children.

HKACLP and the students of HKU Higher Diploma in Dental Hygiene organized Dental Hygiene Zoom Workshops for the children who are participating HKACLP’s Early Orthodontic Treatment Project, having orthodontics at Chai Wan Baptist Church Dental Clinic.  Through the workshops, we hope to guide CLP children the correct ways of maintain their dental hygiene so that their orthodontic treatment may not be forced to stop due to gum inflammation, periodontal disease, dental decay…And most of all, they can enjoy health teeth during their life time.

Adults’ Consultation for Secondary Treatment

As the patients are growing up, their secondary cleft lip and nose facial problems, such asymmetric & collapsed nostrils, insufficient longitude & latitude of upper lip etc. are more apparent which make them feel embarrassed and find it difficult to integrate into the society.  They are desperately in need for secondary revision surgeries to improve lip & nose function & appearance, speech, eating and social life.  

Since every patient's cleft condition is unique, HKACLP gives suggestions for different treatments on individual cases so as to help the patients seek for due surgical revisions.  Besides, the association provides information on pre-surgery preparation, post-operative care as well as follow-up treatments details helping the patients to have full rehabilitation.

Links:

• HKACLP Website