The quality of your sleep profoundly impacts the quality of your wake
Sleep is an active process in maintenance and restoration by the brain and body to keep you well, on a daily schedule. It is one of the pillars of health alongside diet and exercise for vitality and longevity in life. As dentists, we are in a unique position to be in the first-line of recognising clinical signs and screening for sleep disordered breathing, which includes sleep apnea (suffocation during sleep). This is because it is commonly a disease of cranio-facial anatomy, and is the expertise of dentists! Furthermore, JSD dentists are trained in the physiologic approach, led by Dr Anne-Maree Cole an expert in this field who achieved a masters with distinction in Sleep Medicine (credentials). This means that muscle function, posture and balance of the head, neck, jaws and airway are additionally taken into consideration when treating sleep disordered breathing / sleep apnea with a custom made oral appliance. If you are ready to take charge of your sleep quality and gain more years of vitality in your life, contact us today for a preliminary sleep screen. Let us help you turn your sleep from survival- to revival.
Consultation
Neuromuscular Work Up
Delivery of Appliance
Follow up
The first step is to book a consultation with one of our dentists, so we can determine if an Oral Appliance or orofacial myofunctional therapy would be suitable for you. We will do a clinical examination, any necessary x-rays and review your PSG (Sleep Study) or sleep screening results. We will then discuss your options and provide you with a treatment plan to move forward.
This is where we are different to the traditional dental approach. We pride ourselves on our Physiologic Approach to treating sleep apnoea and snoring. This 2 hour appointment is scheduled to take impressions, TENS therapy to relax your jaw and neck muscles and finally the Neuromuscular bite registration (a bite taken at a relaxed, neutral jaw position - confirmed using our EMG's and K7 Evaluation System).
This is the most important part of our approach, providing you with a muscle-comfortable jaw position and appliance.
After your work up, your impressions and bite registration will be sent to the lab. When it has returned from the lab 3-4 weeks after the Work Up, we will issue you the appliance, ensuring it fits comfortably and provide you with care instructions.
Another difference we have as part of the Physiologic Approach as opposed to traditional approach, is that we insist on following up the efficacy of the appliance. We do not provide you with the titration (adjustment) tool and we only adjust your appliance based on objective data. Therefore, we will ask you to do home-based follow up sleep screenings to ensure your sleep apnoea, snoring and symptoms are improving. We will adjust the appliance if necessary and follow up again, until we get you to your 'sweet spot'. We then recommend annual sleep screenings to ensure you sleep apnoea is still being managed adequately.
