Dentists providing temporary appliances can meet the medical needs of their patients without typical delays and enable creative solutions to common problems. Cost of care can be reduced, improving office productivity while enhancing the dentist’s role in treating sleep disordered breathing.|

Learning Objectives
After this course, you should be able to:
•Appreciate the importance of delay in starting treatment for at-risk patients
• Communicate to other providers that options are available to minimize delay
• Offer patients and other providers treatment during suspension of regular care
• Cite current research supporting use of temporary mandibular advancement devices
• Increase office productivity by use of this new approach to treatment

Abstract:
Delays between identification of people with sleep disordered breathing and getting them into therapy prolongs risk of medical complications. By providing immediate therapy, dentists can help their patients improve sleep quality and address the medical diagnosis in a timely manner. Successful treatment methods frequently must be suspended for valid reasons.  Professional level temporary devices provide the clinician options to address individual patient concerns, enabling continuity of appropriate medical care. People who use mandibular advancement devices undergo an accommodation period that is unique to each patient. Using immediate therapy helps mitigate early negative symptoms, decreases cost of providing therapy to the office, and enhances the delivery of vital medical services.

Outline:

1. Introduction and Disclosures

2. Treating Sleep Disordered Breathing
a. Various options
b. Timeline
c. Medical Morbidities
d. Other Options

3. Temporary Oral Appliances
a. Current Choices in the Market
b. PAP interface devices

4. Why Use a Temporary MAD?
a. Successful OAT Users
b. Successful PAP Users
c. During PAP Suspension
d. Adjunct to PAP Therapy
e. As a Trial Appliance
f. What about Snoring?

5. Comparing Custom to Temporary MAD

6. Office Systems and Temporary MAD
a. Marketing Ideas
b. Insurance Considerations
c. An actual clinical trial

7. Conclusion