Editorial 1, Issue 2.3

What Do We/They Want to Know?

http://dx.doi.org/10.15331/jdsm.4864

Leslie C. Dort, DDS, Diplomate, ABDSM, Editor-in-Chief Journal of Dental Sleep Medicine
University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Dental sleep medicine clinicians and researchers had the opportunity at the recent AADSM annual meeting to hear leading researchers give state-of-the-art lectures on the latest developments both oral appliance therapy and related topics. Dental sleep medicine clinicians look to these meetings and this journal to help guide their clinical care of patients. The dental sleep medicine audience tends to appreciate, more than other dental audiences, the need for evidence to provide the foundation of clinical practice. It is an audience hungry for evidence. But it is not the only audience with questions.

I recently had the honor of giving a presentation on oral appliance therapy at the APSS meeting in Seattle. The audience was primarily sleep physicians and their questions about oral appliance therapy proved to be very informative. Below is a list of representative questions asked by sleep physicians.

  1. When I prescribe oral appliance therapy what appliance should I tell my patients to ask their dentist to provide?
  2. What about the orthodontic changes that result from the use of oral appliances, can anything be done to prevent them, how serious are they?
  3. Can children have oral appliance therapy?
  4. How much does it cost?
  5. How do we as physicians know what dentists to collaborate with?
  6. How do a find a dentist who works with the government funding programs?
  7. What if a patient with severe OSA refuses CPAP- what will a dentist tell them?
  8. What about truck drivers and compliance- can they just put their appliances in a water bath to mimic compliance?
  9. How do I approach a dentist- I know nothing about teeth and oral appliances?
Some of these questions have been addressed in the recent AASM/AADSM joint guidelines, published in this issue of Journal of Dental Sleep Medicine1 and the July 2015 issue of Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine. The guidelines for the first time address the issue who may be qualified to practice dental sleep medicine. The guidelines also address the roles of the physician and dentist in diagnosis, follow-up sleep testing and long term follow-up. Other questions require one-to-one networking. It is obvious that there are physicians eager to collaborate and dentists need to get out there and find them.?

Other questions may be answered by the development and publication of practice protocols. However, many questions require research, years of research and data collection. It is my hope that through this journal we will be able to help disseminate both new research findings and reviews to continue to help answer these questions.

CITATION

Dort LC. What do we/they want to know? Journal of Dental Sleep Medicine 2015;2(3):65.

REFERENCES

1. Ramar K, Dort LC, Katz SG, Lettieri CJ, Harrod CG, Thomas SM, Chervin RD. Clinical practice guideline for the treatment of obstructive sleep apnea and snoring with oral appliance therapy: an update for 2015. Journal of Dental Sleep Medicine 2015;2:71–125.

SUBMISSION & CORRESPONDENCE INFORMATION

Submitted for publication June, 2015
Accepted for publication June, 2015

Address correspondence to: Leslie C. Dort, DDS, 1016-68th Ave SW, Suite 150, Calgary, AB T2V 4J2, Canada; Tel: (403) 202-4905; Fax: (403)202-0266; Email: lcdort@gmail.com

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

Dr. Dort is Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Dental Sleep Medicine.



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