When you hear the phrase, “Sleep Apnea”, you don’t typically think of dentists, but a Las Vegas dental school hopes to change that. The Las Vegas Institute for Advanced Dental Studies, commonly known as LVI Global has launched a new series of courses aimed at educating dentists on how to recognize the symptoms of Sleep Apnea and, working with a sleep physician, diagnose and treat the disease.

The first course happened last week and was a foundational class that taught dentists about the potentially deadly effects that Sleep Apnea can have on the body, and why a dentist can act as the first line of defense in identifying potential Sleep Apnea sufferers called “apneics”.

“People with Sleep Apnea often don’t know that they have it. By simply asking some questions that their primary doctor might not know to ask, we can help people be aware of the problem and start them on the road to treatment,” says Corpus Christi Sleep Apnea dentist, Dr. Don Lowrance. Read the rest of this entry

The American Lung Association testified today about urgent lung health issues facing military personnel and the Department of Defense.  H. James Gooden, Chair of the Board of Directors of the American Lung Association, appeared before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense to urge that action be taken quickly to combat tobacco use in the military and address the growing health threat posed by burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan resulting in sleep apnea,asthma,and other deadly diseases.  Gooden also spoke to the importance of restoring an important lung cancer research program.

Gooden told the Subcommittee of the clear and present threat caused by tobacco use in the military.  “The alarming use of tobacco in the military has severe consequences,” Gooden said. “It impacts troop readiness, impairs physical capacity, vision, and hearing, and increases the chance of physical injury and hospitalization.”  Read the rest of this entry

[Press Release]- Graymark Healthcare Inc. the nation’s second largest provider of diagnostic sleep services and an innovator in comprehensive care for obstructive sleep apnea today announced that it sold a record number of CPAP machines in Q2 providing relief to over 750 patients. In addition they served over 1275 patients through their CPAP re-supply service.

Graymark Healthcare has been pioneering better techniques for ensuring that patients diagnosed with Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) are quickly and effectively treated in an effort to optimize clinical outcomes. Graymark has driven improved patient compliance with CPAP care and overall disease management by integrating the diagnostic and treatment processes.

“In Q4 of 2009 we at Graymark Healthcare announced the launch of our comprehensive care model aimed at improving the conversion rate of patients diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea to successful care with a CPAP device. We have seen consistent month over month growth in our therapy services this year and had record patient therapy volumes in Q2. We expect continued momentum through Q3 and associated strong performance,” said Stanton Nelson, Chairman and CEO of Graymark Healthcare. “We believe that our revolutionary comprehensive care model better serves our patients and is more cost effective than the fragmented care provided in other settings. Additionally, our re-supply program ensures that our patients are contacted no less than quarterly and that we can continue to work with them to improve their CPAP experience,” added Nelson. Read the rest of this entry

According to a new research study findings theBerlin questionnaire performs poorly in predicting obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) in pregnant women compared to polysomnography. The detailed findings of this research study are published in the June issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology.

Sofia A. Olivarez, M.D., of the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, and colleagues conducted a prospective clinical trial of 100 women in the third trimester of pregnancy to determine the ability of the Berlin sleep questionnaire to predict OSA. The women all underwent polysomnography with concurrent fetal heart monitoring (FHM).

The researchers observed that 20 percent of the cohort was diagnosed with OSA by polysomnography, considered the diagnostic gold-standard. The Berlin screening questionnaire was 35 percent as sensitive as polysomnography and 63.8 percent as specific in predicting OSA. Read the rest of this entry

According to new research that received the Graduate Student Research Award on June 5, at the 19th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Dental Sleep Medicine, the ratio between tongue volume and bony enclosure size in patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) may help dentists calculate oral appliance treatment success.

The researchers assessed whether anatomical factors such as craniofacial size, upper-airway soft tissue volume, and/or the anatomical balance between them were associated with mandibular advancement splint (MAS) treatment outcome.

The study included 49 OSA patients. Patients were at least 18 years of age and had mild to severe sleep apnea. They were without other sleep disorders or serious comorbid medical or psychiatric disorders. Read the rest of this entry

Snoring problems are something that the majority of us will encounter at some point in our lives, whether it’s our own or someone else’s. If you live with a snorer or if you are one yourself, then you know that snoring is something that can actually drive a wedge between people. Neither the snorer nor the one who can’t sleep through the noise gets a good night’s sleep, resulting in mental fatigue the next day. If the problem with snoring occurs each day, as it does with most couples, it can lead to even bigger problems. [Read the full article:http://naturalhealthezine.com/natural-snoring-remedies-cures/]

According to the latest research stud report published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, the air pollution could significantly elevate sleep related respiratory disorders.

According to researcher Diane Gold of the Harvard School of Public Health, air pollution can cause a “clinically significant” increase in symptoms such as shallow breathing and sleep apnea.

“You are at a 13% higher risk of having shallow breathing or stopping breathing for at least 10 seconds if pollution goes from the lower range to the higher range of pollution for that city,” Diane Gold stated.

Although this team of researchers has been successful in identifying a link between pollution and poor sleep quality but according to them causes for such links ae yet to be explored and known. “How much of the cardiac risk that can be explained by pollution, we don’t know yet,” she added. Read the rest of this entry

Individuals with sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) are at increased cardiovascular risk, possibly due to SDB-related stresses contributing to atherosclerosis. The research study postulates that pathways associated with a pro-thrombotic potential are up-regulated in SDB.

Methods

Morning and evening plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1), morning fibrinogen and morning D-dimer were measured in 537 Cleveland Family Study adults. Piecewise multivariable linear mixed models estimated relative mean change or mean change in the biomarker per 5-unit increase in apnea hyponea index (AHI) in two groups: AHI<15 and AHI15 and hypoxia defined as percentage of sleep time with SaO2<90% (<2%, 2%). Read the rest of this entry

Do you suffer from sleep apnea or do you have a family member or friend who suffers from it?

If so, you are encouraged to attend this support group meeting on Monday, July 5 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Parrish Healthcare Center at Port St. John, 5005 Port St. John Parkway, (I-95 east of the Port St. John exit). The meeting will be held in the Conference Center south entrance (near the sleep lab). This is a free community service. Please call 321-268-6408 to register. Also at the July A.W.A.K.E. Support Group meeting the importance of humidification and CPAP maintenance will be discussed. Read the rest of this entry

[Press Release]-Circadiance, the world leader in soft cloth nasal CPAP masks, has launched the SleepWeaver(R) in the European Union and will launch in Canada soon. The company has secured the right to apply the CE Mark after becoming ISO 13485 certified.

“Sleep Apnea affects tens of millions of people around the world,” said David Groll, Circadiance’s CEO. “We have already established distributors in several European countries in preparation for this launch, and we anticipate the same enthusiastic reception in these new markets that we have enjoyed in the U.S. Our soft cloth mask is the answer to uncomfortable hard plastic masks that foster noncompliance. This milestone is just another step in our effort to establish global distribution for our superior cloth CPAP mask technology.” Read the rest of this entry

Migraine sufferers who experienced abuse and neglect as children have a greater risk of cardiovascular (CV) disease including stroke and myocardial infarction (MI) among others, say scientists presenting data at the American Headache Society’s 52nd Annual Scientific Meeting in Los Angeles this week. 

In a multi-center, cross-sectional study of more than 1,300 headache clinic patients diagnosed with migraine, investigators found a linear relationship between the risk of stroke, transient ischemic attack (TIA), MI, or all of these adverse outcomes and the total number of abuse types they experienced as children (physical, emotional or sexual abuse, or physical or emotional neglect.) 

Patients in the study completed a self-administered electronic questionnaire which collected information on age, gender, race, highest educational level attained, body mass index, smoking status, history of childhood maltreatment, as well as self-reported physician-diagnosed CV conditions and risk factors such as hypertension, diabetes, obesity, and obstructive sleep apnea. The Childhood Trauma Questionnaire was used to assess physical, sexual, emotional abuse and physical, emotional neglect. 

“It is clear from this work that early adverse experiences influence a migraine sufferers’ cardiovascular health in adulthood,” said Gretchen E. Tietjen, MD, of the University of Toledo College Of Medicine, who led the team from 11 neurology centers in the U.S. and Canada. “Other work has shown a link between childhood maltreatment and migraine and now we know that early abuse puts these adults at a greater risk of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease. 

Read the rest of this entry

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is hypothesized to be influenced by genes within pathways involved with obesity, craniofacial development, inflammation and ventilatory control. We conducted the first candidate gene study of OSA using family data from European-Americans and African-Americans, selecting biologically plausible genes from within these pathways.

Methods

1080 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were genotyped in 729 African-Americans and 505 SNPs were genotyped in 694 European-Americans. Coding for SNPs additively, association testing on the apnea hypopnea index (AHI) as a continuous trait and OSA as a dichotomous trait (AHI 15) was conducted using methods that account for familial correlations in models adjusted for age, age-squared, and sex, with and without body mass index. Read the rest of this entry

The Department of Veterans Affairs has recently observed that there is a sharp rise in reported cases of the breathing disorder sleep apnea. USA Today reported that over the last two years, the number of sleep apnea patients receiving disability benefits from the VA has risen 61 percent, at a cost of close to a half-billion dollars a year.

USA Today reported on the risk factors:

“More than 63,000 veterans receive benefits for sleep apnea, a disorder that causes a sleeping person to gasp for breath and awaken frequently. It is linked to problems ranging from daytime drowsiness to heart disease. The top risk factor for contracting the disorder appears to be obesity, though a sleep expert at the VA and a veteran’s advocacy organization cite troops’ exposure to dust and smoke in places such as Afghanistan and Iraq as contributing factors.

“More claims are likely to be made in the future as Baby Boomers age and get heavier, says Max Hirshkowitz, director of the Sleep Disorder Center at the Houston Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

“Veterans are four times more likely than other Americans to suffer from sleep apnea, Hirshkowitz said. About 5% of Americans have the disorder, he said, compared with 20% of veterans.”

Research and Markets has announced the addition of GlobalData’s new report “Canada Anesthesia and Respiratory Devices Market Outlook to 2016″ to their offering.

The medical equipment report, provides key market data on the Canada anesthesia and respiratory devices market. The report provides value (USD million), volume (units) and average price (USD) data for each segment and sub-segment within six market categories – anesthesia disposables, anesthesia machines, respiratory devices, respiratory disposables, respiratory measurement devices, and sleep apnea diagnostic systems. The report also provides company shares and distribution shares data for each of the aforementioned market categories. The report is supplemented with global corporate-level profiles of the key market participants with information on company financials and pipeline products, wherever available. Read the rest of this entry

It is unclear when it is safe to discharge patients with a diagnosis of Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) after ambulatory surgical procedures due to concern for postoperative respiratory compromise and hypoxemia. Our OSA patients undergoing ambulatory-type orthopedic procedures are monitored overnight in the PACU, thus we reviewed patient records to determine incidence of complications. Read the rest of this entry