Home Sleep Testing

Sleep studies are tests that measure how well you sleep and how your body responds to sleep problems. These tests can help your doctor find out whether you have a sleep disorder and how severe it is.

Sleep studies are important because untreated sleep disorders can raise your risk for heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, and other medical conditions. Sleep disorders also have been linked to an increased risk of injury, such as falling (in the elderly) and car accidents.

People usually aren’t aware of their breathing and movements while sleeping. They may never think to talk to their doctor about issues that might be related to sleep problems.

However, sleep disorders can be treated. Talk with your doctor if you snore regularly or feel very tired while at work or school most days of the week.

Diagnosing sleep apnea used to be an expensive and inconvenient process requiring an overnight stay in a sleep lab or hospital. A technician observes the patient and records sleeping habits using audio and video equipment. Many sleep centers operate at full capacity causing 4-6 week delays in patient testing and waiting for results.

The home sleep test is more convenient for you. Many experts agree that testing sleep in your normal home environment offers many advantages to the laboratory setting, which is admittedly uncomfortable and unrealistic.

Your doctor might be able to diagnose a sleep disorder based on your sleep schedule and habits. However, he or she also might need the results from sleep studies and other medical tests to diagnose a sleep disorder.

Dental Evaluation

A thorough oral exam will be done to evaluate structures relating to your airway and possible changes that may relate to airway problems. We use a painless technique which draws a picture of your nasal passages and oral and pharyngeal airway with sound waves. These sound waves pinpoint the location and degree of airway obstructions and allow us to determine in advance if mandibular advancement procedure will be beneficial. We offer state of the art Computerized Tomography scans (CT scans), which combine a series of X-ray views taken from many different angles and computer processing to create cross-sectional images of the bones and soft tissues within your body. These images can be combined to create 3-D images of your airway.

Oral Device

Oral Appliance Therapy: Our sleep apnea therapy and treatment philosophy is geared toward treating sleep disordered breathing in patients who cannot or will not tolerate a CPAP. Best estimates from medical sources indicate that one of five adults has sleep apnea and that the prevalence of sleep apnea is much greater in the middle-aged and older. Less than twenty percent of seniors that have sleep apnea have been diagnosed. Fewer yet have been treated. Of those who have been treated by CPAP (mask and pump), over fifty percent are unable to use this method. Oral appliances are recommended by the Academy of Sleep Medicine (the group that establishes protocol for all treatment of sleep disorders) as the preferred treatment for mild and moderate sleep apnea as well as for those who cannot tolerate CPAP. FDA-approved oral sleep appliances or dental appliances for sleep apnea prevent your jaw and tongue from closing your airway, which is the cause of snoring and sleep apnea. An oral appliance may also be custom made for patients who do not have sleep apnea but snore loudly. Patients can consult with our sleep specialists to determine the best course of action.