Apnea Guard is a patented non-custom oral appliance that can be fitted in less than 15 minutes by any trained health professional and worn for up to 30 nights. The patented design utilizes a combination of tongue size and sex to select phenotypical features that achieve treatment outcomes superior to the conventional fitting of custom oral appliances.
Apnea Guard was developed as a result of a $1.05 mm NIH grant investigation into how to improve oral appliance therapy outcomes. Research conducted with the Apnea Guard recently received a Clinical Excellence Award and two Clinical Research awards from the American Academy of Dental Sleep Medicine.
The Apnea Guard Theragnostic Protocol explains how the feature characteristics that contributed to its superior efficacy can be digitally scanned and incorporated into custom oral appliance.
Features
- 1mm incremental advancements across full range of protrusive settings
- Three vertical sizes (low, med, high VDOs) proven to improve outcomes in men and women
- Systematic approach which predicts the target end-point for 80% of OAT responders
Clinical Applications
- Inexpensively identify responders to oral appliance therapy
- Reduce OSA symptoms identified post-operatively
Key Findings
Study 1
- 79% of patients intolerant of CPAP exhibited a treatment response to the Apnea Guard
- If a patient has an AHI < 10 with the Apnea Guard, the odds of custom oral appliance achieving an AHI < 10 is 4.3
- Using the Theragnostic Protocol, the Apnea Guard Trial appliance delivered superior treatment outcomes as compared to a conventional fitted custom oral appliance
Practice Benefits
- Provides immediate therapeutic benefit while the patient is waiting for custom appliance to be fabricated or repaired
- Utilize an evidence-based system for defining protrusive, bite and VDO settings while eliminating the need for use of a George Gauge bite fork
- Accelerates the fabrication process with greater accuracy and reduced burden on the patient
- Reduce the time to titrate the custom oral appliance using the predicted target protrusion
Bite Registration
The Apnea Guard design features can be easily and accurately incorporated into the fabrication of the custom appliance based on one of two techniques:
With a Digital Scanner
Get Started for Only $375
- 5 AG Appliances (1 Low, 3 Med, 1 High)
- 400g Base and Catalyst (enough to fit over 35 Apnea Guards)
- Retention Material Scoop
- Work Table
Learn more about our Personalized OSA Treatment Protocol
Clinical Evidence
Featured Article
Validation of a Novel Trial Oral Appliance Protocol vs. a Conventional Custom Oral Appliance Protocol for the Treatment of OSA. Levendowski DJ, Sall E, Morgan T, et al. J Den Sleep Med . 2021;8(2)
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