Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) is the most common sleep disorder. It refers to the collapse of the upper airway due to abnormal relaxation of the muscles and soft tissues in the throat during the night. Generally, an adult experiences more than 30 episodes of apnea during 7 hours of sleep each night, with airflow through the mouth and nose stopping for 10 seconds or longer during each episode, accompanied by a drop in blood oxygen saturation.Obstructive Sleep Apnea breaks down deep sleep patterns into lighter sleep, causing the brain to be deprived of oxygen, which makes patients feel sleep-deprived in the morning.
OSA is a very common disease, with over 1 billion patients worldwide, including 54 million in the United States alone. If OSA is not treated in a timely manner, it can lead to serious health risks such as stroke, heart disease, and diabetes, resulting in an economic loss of $150 billion each year.
Currently, the main treatment for OSA is Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) therapy, which, although effective, requires patients to wear a cumbersome mask throughout the night to keep the airway open, making it intolerable for many patients. Additionally, patients face a CPAP treatment failure rate of up to 50%.
There are also surgical treatments and sublingual nerve stimulators, but both have their own drawbacks.
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Surgical treatment: Such as uvulopalatopharyngoplasty, which is invasive, expensive, and has a failure rate of 40%.
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Sublingual nerve stimulator (Inspire): Targets only the tongue area, is invasively implanted, and is ineffective for 40% of patients.
Therefore, patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) need new technologies to help treat them. To this end, Somnair Sleep has developed a new non-invasive treatment technology for OSA called Somnair.
Somnair
Somnair is a non-invasive nerve stimulation technology that uses Somnair Sleep proprietary pending nerve stimulation technology to stimulate the palatal and pharyngeal wall muscles through an oral appliance with a “retainer + electronic module” to prevent airway collapse during sleep.Somnair resembles an “invisible dental appliance” with an electrode array on the upper surface to stimulate nerves and muscles to open the airway.
Somnair treatment principle: By stimulating the palatal and pharyngeal wall muscles, it reduces the collapse of the posterior and lateral walls of the palate.
Somnair treatment is very simple; it starts with scanning the patient’s mouth, followed by customizing a dental appliance that fits the patient’s mouth, allowing the patient to wear the appliance with the built-in stimulator for treatment.
Somnair consists of three parts: the treatment appliance, a mobile app, and the cloud.The mobile app can generate treatment reports for the patient and send them to the cloud, allowing doctors to remotely view the treatment effects.
Somnair has been validated at Johns Hopkins Hospital: it can effectively open the airway, restore airflow, and avoid waking patients during sleep.
Somnair has advantages over traditional therapies
Somnair Sleep
Somnair Sleep is an innovative medical device company that is developing a new type of non-invasive nerve stimulation oral appliance for the treatment of obstructive sleep apnea.
