Use of oral appliance to treat sleep apnea tied to minimal negative influence on jaw mobility and occlusion
Use of oral appliance to treat obstructive sleep apnea had minimal negative influence on jaw function including mobility and occlusion suggests a new study published in the American Journal of Orthodontics and Dentofacial Orthopedics.
Oral appliance (OA) therapy in obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) could be a risk factor for normal jaw function, given the prolonged effect of an OA in keeping the mandible in a protruded position away from a normal position. This study aimed to assess changes in symptoms and clinical findings related to jaw function after 1 year of treating obstructive sleep apnea with an Oral appliance.
In this follow-up clinical trial, 302 patients with obstructive sleep apnea were assigned to treatment with either monobloc or bibloc oral appliance. Baseline and 1-year follow-up assessment included using the Jaw Functional Limitation Scale, self-reported symptoms and signs related to jaw function. The clinical examination of jaw function included mandibular mobility, dental occlusion, and tenderness in the temporomandibular joints and masticatory muscles. Descriptive analyses of variables are presented for the per-protocol population. To evaluate differences between the baseline and the 1-year follow-up, paired Student t tests and the McNemar change test was used.
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