New Study: Wrinkles make it hard to judge emotions

As if looking old isn’t taxing enough, a new study from Penn State University found that people have difficulty reading the emotions of individuals who have wrinkly faces.  On average, pictures depicting older adults were rated as more angry or sad compared to the photos of younger people, despite the fact that every face photographed showed neutral emotions.  Fortunately, there are many treatments that can help improve wrinkles of the face and neck.  While facelifts and neck lifts may target hanging skin, Botox injections can treat wrinkles before they begin to form, and facial fillers such as Juvederm, Radiesse, and Restylane can add volume and fill in deep creases around the eyes, mouth and forehead.

Facelift patients benefit from pre-surgery education and access to adjunctive skin care.  These patients have great expectations for outcomes, but not all aging concerns can be addressed with the lifting alone.  By combining surgery with preoperative and postoperative skin care, and with thorough patient education, patients may enjoy greater satisfaction and optimal, longer-lasting results.  When patients are on proper, individualized skin care regimens they not only improve the quality of their surgical outcomes, but typically prolong the results of the lift itself.

Today, less invasive surgical lifts combined with complementary surgical and nonsurgical procedures can often produce safer and more natural-looking results than more traditional surgical lifts of the past.  While facelifting alone has great value, many patients need more.  For example, part of the face typically thins as it ages.  So, in addition to lifting, some kind of Volume-Restoration is needed.  In most of my patients who undergo face-neck lifting surgery I perform simultaneous fat injections as well.  And while surgical fat injections can restore lost facial volume in a natural-appearing way, there may be non-surgical choices for softening wrinkles.  Belotero,, Botox, Juvederm, Radiesse, Restylane, Sculptra and Xeomin offer safe alternatives in helping to re-sculpt that face.