New book · Now shipping
The Importance of Breathing
A Multi-Discipline Literature Review on the Correlates of Breathing and Its Relationship to Health and Well-Being
By Mohamed A. Mohamed, PhD, SLP, COM® and Kirsten Trevisonn, RDH, COM® · Foreword by Dr. Jenny Hobson, PT, DPT, Founder of the Hobson Institute
A year in the making. This is the book we kept looking for and couldn't find — the research on breathing, gathered from dentistry, physical therapy, speech-language pathology, respiratory therapy, medicine, and orofacial myology, and put in one place in language clinicians can actually use.
For the dental team, it's the evidence behind what you're already seeing at the chair: mouth breathing, low tongue posture, crowding, relapse after orthodontics, fatigue, poor sleep. It connects the signs you chart to the systems they affect — and gives you the citations to back up the conversation.
Multi-discipline
Six professions, one shared foundation: a stable airway and efficient breathing.
Evidence-based
A literature review you can cite in referrals, case notes, and CE presentations.
Clinician-first
Written to be used at the chair, not left on a shelf.
"What I especially appreciate about this book is its commitment to an interdisciplinary perspective. It encourages clinicians to move beyond treating isolated symptoms and instead appreciate breathing as a shared foundation across healthcare professions."
Summary
What the book covers
Breathing is the one function every health profession touches and almost none of them teach together. This book pulls the research out of its silos — dentistry, physical therapy, speech-language pathology, respiratory therapy, medicine, and orofacial myology — and lays it out as one connected picture: how we breathe shapes how we grow, sleep, move, speak, and heal.
Nasal vs. oral breathing
Why the nose is not interchangeable with the mouth — filtration, humidification, nitric oxide, and the downstream effects when the nasal route is bypassed.
Growth and craniofacial development
Tongue posture, lip seal, and airway patency as forces on the developing face, and how they show up as crowding, narrow arches, and open bites.
Sleep and sleep-disordered breathing
The spectrum from snoring to apnea, what it does to daytime function in children and adults, and the signs the dental team sees first.
Posture, the diaphragm, and the body
Breathing mechanics, head-forward posture, and the myofascial links between airway, neck, and core stability.
Speech, feeding, and orofacial function
Swallow patterns, articulation, and feeding history as clinical clues to breathing patterns established early.
Relapse and treatment stability
Why muscular patterns undo orthodontic and aligner results when they are not addressed, and what the literature says about retention.
Screening and interdisciplinary referral
What each profession is positioned to catch, and how to hand a patient off so the finding does not get lost between offices.
The evidence base
A referenced literature review you can cite in case notes, referral letters, and CE presentations — the citations, gathered in one place.
Who it's for
Hygienists, dentists, orthodontists, speech-language pathologists, physical therapists, myofunctional therapists, and physicians who keep seeing the same patterns and want the evidence behind them — plus students and educators who need a single, cross-disciplinary reference.
Order now — $150 USD →