Dental CE Course: The Fundamentals of Oral Appliance Therapy for Sleep Apnea

Course Synopsis

Dental sleep medicine is one of the fastest growing fields of dentistry. Uniquely combining medicine and dentistry, it provides one of the most important emerging forms of treatment for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA): oral appliance therapy. Dentists are needed to fill a tremendous gap in the public health system by identifying undiagnosed OSA and caring for patients who suffer from this sleep disorder.

Treating this very grateful group of patients is meaningful, financially rewarding and, in many cases, literally a matter of life or death. In this workshop, dentists and auxiliaries will learn how to identify OSA patients within their practice, and how to manage their condition using the proven treatment approach of oral appliance therapy.

Course Objectives

After completing this course, the dental professional should be able to:

- Understand proper case work-up for the sleep apnea patient.
- Have a basic understanding of sleep medicine and OSA.
- Identify critical anatomy and sleep study data that predict success.
- Follow a typical sleep apnea case from start to finish.
- Understand when to refer patients to other specialists and how to manage complications.
- Understand the indications, limitations and benefits of using home sleep studies during case management.

Additional Course Information

This workshop will also include a hands-on demonstration of how to take a bite registration for an oral sleep appliance and how to insert a Silent Nite® sl anti-snoring/sleep apnea device. After registering for this course, attendees will be asked to send their own impressions to Glidewell Laboratories for the fabrication of a Silent Nite sl device. Each attendee will then receive his or her own customized Silent Nite sl during the course.

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About Dr. Morgan

Dr. Todd Morgan is a clinician and researcher with 20 years' experience in dental sleep medicine and a highly respected leader in the field. His team has completed several NIH-funded clinical trials and authored numerous peer-reviewed articles and books on the treatment of sleep apnea with dental appliances. Dr. Morgan's collaborative work has shed light on the appropriate selection of patients and strategies to guide successful outcomes in the treatment of sleep-related breathing disorders. His experience in screening for OSA among dental patients and its relationship to TMJ dysfunction will help the general practitioner better understand who to select for oral appliance therapy and enable the practitioner to connect the dots in terms of nocturnal breathing, dentistry and the elusive "envelope of function."