抄録
Objectives : Obstructive sleep apnea （OSA） is classified as a sleep disorder. Oral appliance （OA） therapy and nasal continuous positive airway pressure （nCPAP） are the most common treatments for OSA, but their effectiveness is dependent on the patients’ compliance. After adjusting the mandibular position in consideration of side effects, patients undergoing OA therapy should participate in sleep tests with OA to evaluate the treatment efficacy. If the effect is low, the OA should be readjusted. Recent researches point out that sleep tests with OA have not been adequately conducted, and improvements are desired. The purpose of this study was to investigate the background of OA therapy, OA adherence and the implementation status of sleep tests with OA.
Methods : This study evaluated 780 patients who underwent OA therapy at the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery of Aichi Medical University Hospital. We examined the medical records of the subjects retrospectively. We investigated the implementation status of sleep tests with OA, what sleep test method was used and when OA therapy was interrupted. We compared the patients’ background in the groups with OA evaluation and without OA evaluation.
Results : There were 399 cases in the group with OA evaluation and 315 cases in the group without OA evaluation. The group with OA evaluation （age: 56.12±13.78） was significantly older than the group without OA evaluation （age: 52.69±15.10）. There was no gender difference between the groups with OA evaluation and without OA evaluation. The implementation status of polysomnography （PSG） and out-of-center sleep testing （OCST） performed at the time of OA evaluation differed between ages.
Conclusions : There were many cases in which OA adherence was low and the effect of treatment was not evaluated. It was considered that the social background due to age may have had an influence.
