Dental Sleep Medicine Insider November 2016 | Page 9

STACEY LAYMAN

BREAKING
THROUGH
DENIAL
Pulse Oximetry for OSA Screening
P

racticing sleep dentistry can
be an incredibly rewarding profession but how do you handle
the patients that are in DENIAL?  When I first introduced dental sleep medicine into my practice, I found that many patients
did not want to “know” if they
had sleep issues, and even more
didn’t seem to care! They didn’t
want to hear about it. 
No matter how much I educated them about the serious issues
associated with untreated sleep
apnea, it seemed there was nothing I could do to get them to acknowledge the issue and consider the next steps of diagnosis and
disease management. They just
would NOT get a sleep study. I
needed to break through to these
patients.  

I discovered overnight pulse oximetry from Dr. Keith Thornton
and everything changed!   I purchased my first pulse ox unit and
immediately starting sending it
home with patients. I changed
my verbiage and tweaked my
approach. I began informing patients that I thought they might
have an issue with maintaining
their oxygen while they slept

and that I wanted them to go
home with a simple device that
they wear on their finger while
they slept. I stressed that there
was no fee for the service but it
was so important because we
had to be sure they were breathing.  NO ONE SAID “NO!”  Literally no one. Once I got the results
back, I could show them (in bold
red ink) that it was glaringly apparent they had a problem.  This
opened the door to more discussion and provided compelling

Join us February 17th & 18th at the Hilton Clearwater Resort
for the North American Dental Sleep Medicine Symposium
where Dr. Layman will present this topic in greater detail.

objective data that helped erode
their reluctance to get tested and
treated appropriately.  
When I was able to explain they
could have a test in their own bed
and that IF they did indeed have a
problem, the solution didn’t have
to be a “CPack” or “mask”, we
turned a 10% conversion rate into
an 80 % conversion rate almost
overnight.  I also use pulse oximetry to screen the patient in their
appliance to make sure they are
ready for their follow-up sleep
test.  This keeps all the control in
my hands and unnecessary tests
out of the patients’ pockets.  It’s a
WIN-WIN for everyone. 

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER ONLINE AT
WWW.DENTALSLEEPSYMPOSIUM.COM

STACEY LAYMAN

Dental Sleep Practitioner
and DSM Lecturer