Airway Evaluation
The American Dental Association recommends that dentists routinely screen every patient for signs and symptoms of airway disease. 65% of patients suffer from airway disease, which can range from snorning, to sleep disordered breathing (SDB), to sleep apnea. Untreated airway disease can have a huge negative impact on quality of life and longevity, primarily due to cardiovascular and neurologic damage. As dentists, we are the first line of defense to identify evidence of insufficient jaw growth, which is often times manifested by collapsed dental arches, crowding, malocclusion, and tooth wear. All of these factors are evidence that you may be at high risk for airway disease.
An airway evaluation will be an opportunity for your dentist to assess the likelihood of these factors impacting your health. During the visit we will be assessing your jaw development with clinical examination and CBCT 3-D imaging, as well as evaluating the strength and mobility of your oral soft tissues. If your screening is positive and you are at high risk for suffering from airway disease, we may refer you to a qualified sleep medicine doctor for further evaluation, or offer you a home sleep study which will be interpreted by a board certified sleep medicine physician. If you have already been diagnosed with previous airway disease, we can put together your treatment options so that you can decide how to manage the condition as best fits your lifestyle and needs.
Expanders
Proper growth of both jaws is of utmost importance in developing an airway that will be supportive of a lifetime of healthy breathing. Children who suffer from airway difficulties can display a range of symptoms, such as developmental delays, learning difficulties, and emotional dysregulation. We can evaluate your child’s growing jaw and identify any concerns, as well as give any suggestions for growth modification to optimize future development. In the event of undersized jaws, expanders can be used to help catch a child up for any missed growth they may have already experienced. Expanders are custom designed to fit in your child’s mouth to encourage forward and wide growth of the upper jaw so that the lower jaw can also follow this positive growth pattern as your child continues to grow and develop.
In the event of adults who wish to fix the underlying anatomic deficiencies who are already done growing, we offer adult expanders (MSE- maxillary skeletal expansion, or MARPE- mini-screw assisted rapid palatal expansion) that are fixated to the roof of the mouth with mini-implants. This is also a customized appliance that is cemented and fixated to skeletally open up the bone, which often times improves nasal breathing and sinus clarity, sometimes also decreasing symptoms of seasonal allergic rhinitis and sinusitis. Following the expanders, conventional orthodontic treatment or clear aligner therapy can be done in our office, or in conjunction with an orthodontist that we work closely with to complete the more complicated cases. We have seen an improvement in breathing and decrease in problems breathing in patients who remove underlying anatomic deficiencies with this approach. Sleep apnea is multi-factorial in nature, but with this method, we can at least remove any anatomic and skeletal reasons which might predispose you to obstruction.
In the even that jaw surgery is the only option you are interested in dealing with the deficiency, we can refer you to a team of orthodontist and oral surgeon who can put together a treatment plan to optimize your ability to breathe for the rest of your life.
