Novel mouthpiece device design for the treatment of mild to moderate obstructive sleep apnea

Abstract

Sleep is essential for good health and well-being of humans and it lasts for one third of a person's lifetime on average. Therefore, sleep disorders must be taken care quite seriously. Obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) is considered as one of the most common sleep disorder which is even thought to be as prevalent as diabetes. This disorder is characterized by temporary pauses in air ow due the pharyngeal collapsing. Obstructive sleep apnea has mostly been treated by oral appliances and continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) devices which aim to improve airway caliber in the pharyngeal zone. However, the patient compliance for these preferred treatment options has been low due to the adverse e ects that they have caused. In this study, we aim to come up with a novel mouthpiece device design for the treatment of mild to moderate obstructive sleep apnea which is more comfortable for patient use, yet as e cient as current treatments. Thus, prototype devices have been developed by using a 3D printer and been evaluated on eight volunteers throughout MRI scans. After performing MRI scan with and without the use of the novel mouthpiece device prototype, the oropharyngeal volumes of the participants have been reconstructed as 3D models. The oropharyngeal volume comparisons have demonstrated that the use of the novel mouthpiece device prototype has signi cantly enlarged the volume of oropharynx. The enlargement has not only been observed on OSA patients but also on healthy subjects. Consequently, the results can be perceived as this study o ers an alternative treatment device for patients with mild to moderate obstructive sleep apnea.|Keywords : Sleep disorder, Obstructive sleep apnea, Mouthpiece, MRI, Segmentation.