Dental sleep medicine

Dental sleep medicine : help with snoring and nocturnal apnea

Humans spend about a third of their lifetime sleeping. Nevertheless, medicine has only dealt intensively with this phase and the associated disorders and consequences in recent years. Restrictions in quality of life and life expectancy due to sleep disorders such as snoring are not uncommon. In the context of interdisciplinary therapy approaches, dentists can play a central role by manufacturing intraoral snoring therapy devices.

During the screening, you will be given a data box the size of a cigarette box, which has previously been filled with your data, to take home with you overnight and tie it with a strap around your chest while you sleep (Apnealink®).

The next day we evaluate the data recorded during your sleep and can thus determine whether you are simply snoring or snoring with breathing pauses. In the case of simple snoring, small tricks often help to give your bed partner a good night's sleep again. In the case of snoring with breathing pauses, the severity of the disease, which is determined using our evaluation, decides how to proceed.

In the case of a simple to moderately severe disease of OSAHS (obstructive sleep apnea and hypopnea syndrome), an attempt can be made to keep the airways and airways free using two splints made by us for the upper and lower jaw, and thus the number of nocturnal breathing stops to a normal level to reduce.

In the case of a serious illness, the patient is referred to a sleep laboratory so that central breathing disorders can be ruled out and appropriate therapy, usually with breathing masks (CPAP therapy), can be carried out.

If a patient with a breathing mask shows an intolerance to the mask, the manufacture of lower jaw protrusion splints (UPS) in the specialized dental practice is also indicated here.

In order to differentiate primary snoring from snoring with pathological, dangerous breathing stops, we offer our patients what is known as apnea screening.