Maintaining, not regaining: The new paradigm in Facelift

Looking over our patient experience the past several years, the concept of the aging curve has firmly taken hold. Facial aging is a continuum with a gentle upward slope and efforts these days have focused on leveling the aging curve. The traditional facelift candidate used to be an individual with clearly visible signs of aging. Typically, we see laxity in the cheek and jowl, marked by redundant skin and loss of the contour in the neck. Clearly, theses are the hallmarks of facial aging in need of repair. Well before such signs firmly set in, we can see a loss of fullness and volume around the mouth and lip, a flattened cheek, a soft jowl and facial folds. The new paradigm shift in facelift has been maintaining, not regaining, and slowing the upward trend in visible signs of facial aging with earlier intervention. The early maintenance approach is definitely not your mother’s facelift of years ago. Early intervention most often includes individuals in their late forties to early fifties, though for some it makes sense to begin even in the early forties. And maintenance can include fillers and fat replacement, or skin care with peels; however the key is preserving the support in the cheek and jowl. The lift needed to maintain a youthful neck and cheek will address the SMAS, the deeper muscle layer, and in every sense is a real facelift with meaningful and sustained support. Recovery, however, is typically very quick, perhaps a week, and then back to work and social schedules. Maintaining has become the name of the game, and forever young its theme. Holding on to what you have without letting go is an attractive alternative to repair and make over. And an early facelift just may be the way to cheat graceful aging. A woman of an uncertain age or a woman of a certain age, the choice is yours.