Dental Sleep Medicine Insider December 2015 | Page 22

DR. RICHARD DRAKE

HERE’S WHAT THE UPDATED
2015 PRACTICE PARAMETERS
MEAN TO YOU
CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE UPDATED
2015 PRACTICE PARAMETERS PDF
DR. RICHARD DRAKE
My partner, Dr. Gy Yatros,
used to refer to the 2006
Practice Parameters as “the
day the earth shook” in dental
sleep medicine. Up until that
time, physicians were asking
the question: “Should we be
prescribing dental devices
for our patients?” The first
Guidelines, in 2006, said we
could use our dental devices
as a first line of therapy for
patients who were mild to
moderate and for severe
patients if they refused
or could not tolerate PAP
therapy. Though it didn’t
happen
overnight,
we
have seen more physicians
prescribing more dental
devices over the last decade.

Now comes 2015, the year in
which the “Back to the Future”
movie took place, and though
we’ve progressed in most
areas, my take on the Updated
Practice Parameters is that
we have taken a small step
backwards.
The AASM (three sleep MD’s) and
the AADSM (two sleep DDS’s) and
two staff writers from the AASM
made up the task force which
looked at about 400 articles
published in the last ten years.
The task force came up with 11
PICO questions and then looked
to the literature for answers.
From that, they came out with
six new recommendations (two
Standards and four Guidelines).

“I REALLY ENCOURAGE
YOU TO DOWLOAD THE
PDF AND TAKE TIME TO
READ THROUGH THE
ENTIRE 55 PAGES.”
1. Snoring
2. Improve AHI / ODI / AI / Sleep
architecture
3. Cardiovascular endpoints
4. QOL improvements
5. Titratable MRDs Vs. NonTitratable
6. Side Effects
7. F/U SS improve results
8. F/U make a difference
9. Adherence
10. Does one MRD work better
than another
11. Predictive Factors