A facelift is the remedy to loose and sagging skin and face muscles, thus enables to fight efficiently against the visible signs of aging. The goal is not to change face but to be able to get back the appearance the patient once had. There are nowadays several types of facelifts.

Am I a good candidate for facelift?
You may consider a facelift as soon as aging signs appear, generally around 40-45 years old.
Required conditions: facelift is a hard procedure therefore needs to be motivated physically and psychologically.

Facelifts addresses a specific area of the face and can be done separately or during one single surgery (then it’s called a full lift)
Lower Facelift (Cervicofacial): improves the overall appearance of the neck, the jowls, the drooping corners of the mouth, the nasolabial folds (grooves between the nose and mouth), and the cheek fall. It is the most commonly performed facelift of the mid-lower part of the face.
Temporal facelift: addresses sagging skin near the temple, and the external corner of the lids (laugh lines or Crow’s feet)
Brow facelift: addresses the horizontal wrinkles that appear on the forehead and the wrinkles between the eyebrows (Lion “Frawning” wrinkles)

We can also differentiate facelifts according to the surgery depth:
- Subcutaneous facelift only addresses the skin without in-depth action
- SMAS lift tightens the underlying muscle layer
- The mask lift acts right the near the bone and leads to a change in the face shape.

For the last decade, the facelift procedures improved tremendously, thanks to endoscopic plastic surgery (a camera and an endoscope are used and can reduce the scar length), laser treatments (laserbrasion, dermabrasion) and a great improvement in anatomy knowledge.

This surgery can be associated with another plastic surgery procedure for the face: lid plastic surgery (blepharoplasty) and therapeutic medical procedures can complete it (peeling, botulic toxin injections).
How is the surgery performed?

Every surgeon has his/her own technique and adapts it to each patient to obtain the best results. However we can identify the most common principles, as follows:
-The incisions are made at different places on the face depending on the type of facelift. The incisions follow the natural shape of the ears, thus they are for the most part hidden in the hair and the scars are easily concealable.
The detachment or lift: it is done under the skin and its degree depends on each case.
The procedure for the muscle: it can be different depending on the type of facelift.
For a lower facelift: a “muscle tightening”, extremely defined and measured, addresses the sagging while keeping the face expression.
For the temporal-brow facelift: a “weakening of the muscle” to address the wrinkles that appeared.
- The redraping gives tightening to the skin while it is repositioned in order to obtains a result as natural as possible
-Sutures: as they are located in the hair, they are done by staples in most cases.

•        In the country where the surgery is performed

During your hospitalization the surgeon and his staff monitor to ensure there are no complications occurring. A few follow-up visits are also necessary during the required recovery period (usually about 7 to 10 days depending on the type of lifting), they take place directly at your hotel. The first few days the patient will have to rest and avoid any major effort.
•         After you get back to your homeland

Your surgeon will inform you of all the risks involved during your first discussions but also every time you will have a question. You will be then asked to sign a consent form which contains all the details of the whole surgery procedure.
 
Medical literature lists some of the following potential complications (apart from the ones directly linked to anesthesia):
- An hematoma that would require an immediate blood evacuation
- A localized cutaneous necrosis,  responsible for a delay in scarring
- The infection is really rare when the surgery is carried out in normal asepsis conditions
- Nervous lesions, particularly a facial nerve branch lesion, that can lead to paresis, or a facial paralysis are rare, the sequelas of such complications will disappear after a few months
- Abnormal, hypertrophic or keloid scars, that appear and evolve unpredictably, can alter the cosmetic result and will require specific local treatments often on the long-term.