Importance of Considering the Airway in Dental Care

Occlusal appliances are commonly prescribed for the management of Bruxism - but they might be doing more harm than good if you have not screened for an airway issue. Dr. Aditi Desai discussed the link between airway and bruxism- could an airway problem cause bruxism? Why is it advised NOT to have a standard occlusal appliance if there is an airway issue? Did you know there are three levels of diagnosis for Sleep Bruxism? The 'Possible' Bruxist, the 'Probable' Bruxist and the 'Definite' Bruxist - in this episode Dr. Aditi Desai who also featured in PDP 139 on sleep disordered breathing and sleep apnea, will explain this and when it may be relevant to sleep apnoea. https://youtu.be/DozqYGEPNxY Watch PDP149 on Youtube The Protrusive Dental Pearl: Parafunctional Screening Sheet - A simple PDF that you can look for in terms of your extra-oral examination, intra-oral examination and the history - to give a clue that a patient might be a bruxist in just 2 minutes - download below: Parafunctional-ScreenDownload Download and Sign in to the Protrusive App on iOS and Android and head over to the freemium version of this episode and on The Protrusive Vault for those Protrusive Premium members (where you can get full CE or CPD Certificate by answering a few questions) Need to Read it? Check out the Full Episode Transcript below! Highlights of this episode 5:21 The Protrusive Dental Pearl6:28 Dr. Aditi Desai’s Introduction9:17 Airway in Dentistry12:49 Lack of studies with regards to diagnosing sleep bruxism16:32 Signs to look for to a possible bruxist and how to communicate with them27:01 Nomenclature of sleep bruxism30:51 Learning points to assess airway35:43 Cases that caused the patient to become apnoeic Get in touch for different Board of Sleep Medicine: UK: British Academy of Dental Sleep Medicine (BADSM)USA: American Academy of Dental Sleep Medicine (AADSM)Australia: Australian Academy of Dental Sleep Medicine If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like Airway – Dentistry’s Elephant in the Room with Prof Ama Johal Click below for full episode transcript: Jaz's Introduction: Bruxism is a really funny thing because it's like really underdiagnosed by dentists, but also at the same time, very over diagnosed. Now, let me explain what I mean by that. Jaz's Introduction: It's underdiagnosed because every time I see a patient, right, and I say to them, 'Hey, did you know that you've got the signs of teeth grinding and clenching? Look at this wear, look at this crack or whatever.' And they all turn around and say to me, 'wow, no dentist has ever told me that before.' So in that regard, we can argue that bruxism is underdiagnosed because dentists are often sharing cases online and suggesting that the etiology of the wear that we see was bruxism. Whereas when I look at it, I see erosion and I see a restricted envelope or an envelope of function issue and perhaps there's a little bit of bruxism, but I don't think that's the primary reason of the failure. Or even sometimes people say that, 'oh, this patient keeps chipping away their class four composite or this crown has broken. I think the patients are bruxist, but really the crown fracture because the patients are bruxist or perhaps there wasn't enough occlusal reduction, right? So it's both underdiagnosed as also overdiagnosed, and it's an area that I love to read about. So I am a bruxist. Okay, confirmed bruxist. And there's three levels of diagnoses you can make in bruxism, and we cover that in this episode today called Bruxism and the Airway were Dr. Aditi Desai. She also featured, if you remember, on PDP139 on Sleep Disordered Breathing and Sleep Apnea and that kind of stuff. So talking about that, it's relevance to bruxism and for you, welcome. I just want to share with you my story and how I got into splints and TMD. It was through bruxism, like I am a massive bruxist and I rely very heavily on my occlusal applianc...