Empowered Patient Podcast Treating Obstructive Sleep Apnea with Precision Oral Device with Len Liptak ProSomnus Sleep Technologies
Len Liptak is the Co-Founder and CEO of ProSomnus Sleep Technologies, which is providing new options for patients suffering from the chronic disease obstructive sleep apnea. This condition means that the airways are blocked while people are sleeping. The most common treatment is a CPAP device that pushes air through the blockage and down the throat to ensure the sleeper has access to oxygen. ProSomnus has designed a personalized noninvasive oral device that holds the jaw forward to create a precision jaw position and stabilization to aid in better breathing and improved sleep quality.
Len explains, "It's serious but funny, but one of the most common ways it's diagnosed is what we call the elbow test. This is where someone's bed partner notices that their bed partner is having this pause in breathing at night, and they literally elbow the bed partner and say, "Hey, wake up. You're not breathing." At first, it can be cute, but then it becomes serious."
"Oral devices for treating such sleep apnea have been on the market for a while. But the challenge is that those traditional oral appliances arbitrarily posture the jaw forward. They're not quite precision in their nature. The precision is really important because the function of an oral device is to protrude the jaw in a position that opens the airway and then stabilize the jaw in that position throughout the night."
"It's our precision technology that allows us to do that because the airway is only 10 millimeters in diameter. So if the jaw is postured too far forward, it could be counterproductive. If the jaw is not postured far enough forward, it can be counterproductive and not generate efficacy. So it's really important to precisely position the jaw based on the treatment plan and the prescription that the provider draws up for the patient so that we get maximum efficacy."
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