Airway Dentistry Chicago

What is Airway Dentistry?

Airway dentistry is a specialized area of dental care that integrates orthodontics, sleep apnea treatment, and other modalities to support healthy breathing. By focusing on proper jaw development, airway size, and tongue posture, it helps optimize nasal breathing for both children and adults. For children, it can support proper growth and development, while adults often experience better rest, reduced snoring, and a lower risk of cardiovascular complications.

The Dangers of Sleep Disordered Breathing

Sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) can have lasting effects at every stage of life. In adults, poor sleep from SDB raises the risk of serious health problems. Research has shown that those affected are 140% more likely to develop cardiovascular disease, 60% more likely to experience a stroke, and 30% more likely to face coronary heart disease. Thankfully, it’s also documented that treating SDB significantly lowers these risks over the course of someone’s life.

For children, SDB is closely tied to behavioral concerns and can lead to symptoms that resemble ADHD. A large study in the UK, tracking over 11,000 children, found a strong link between pediatric SDB and attention or hyperactivity challenges. Many children diagnosed with ADHD also show symptoms of SDB, and importantly, these often improve or resolve when the airway is properly managed. By optimizing oxygen flow during critical growth years, treatment can enhance behavior, focus, memory, mood, energy, and academic performance.

Symptoms of Sleep Disordered Breathing

How We Can Help

Adult SDB Treatment Options

• Orthodontics: When sleep-disordered breathing stems from issues like a narrow dental arch or crowded teeth, orthodontic treatment can expand the upper and lower jaw, improve tongue posture, and open the airway. These changes support better breathing during sleep while also enhancing dental alignment, function, and appearance, benefiting both health and aesthetics.
• Oral Appliance Treatment: A mandibular advancement device is a custom oral appliance that gently shifts the lower jaw and tongue forward during sleep. This prevents airway collapse, reduces snoring, and promotes easier breathing. Comfortable, removable, and non-invasive, it offers an effective long-term solution that is much more patient-friendly than a CPAP.
• Myofunctional Therapy: This specialized training for the tongue and facial muscles encourages nasal breathing and proper oral function. Through guided exercises, patients strengthen these muscles, leading to improved speech, sleep quality, chewing/digestion, proper swallowing, and reduced orofacial pain,
• Lifestyle Guidance: Sleep difficulties can often be downstream of common health concerns like obesity and tobacco usage. Science has shown that removing these factors can drastically increase a person’s sleep quality in addition to offering countless other health benefits. Of course, losing weight and quitting smoking are easier said than done, but Dr. Rosen can provide manageable and realistic guidance to make the process as straightforward as possible.

Children SDB Treatment Options

• Orthodontics: Orthodontic treatment can correct issues like a small jaw or crowded teeth that restrict breathing during sleep. By expanding the oral cavity, it also creates room for the tongue, helping prevent airway obstruction. This supports healthier breathing, guides proper jaw development, prevents snoring, and makes sure the incoming adult teeth have the space to erupt correctly.
• Lip/Tongue-Tie Treatment: A tie occurs when the lingual (tongue) or labial (lip) frenulum restricts oral movement, significantly impeding breastfeeding, speech, and jaw growth. Early treatment with a simple laser procedure frees the tongue or upper lip, allows for complete muscle function, and supports healthy development in children.
• Myofunctional Therapy: Using a series of exercises focused on the tongue, lips, and throat, it improves speech, eating, and breathing difficulties by retraining the oral muscles that may be hampered due to years of dysfunction (stemming from a tie or unhealthy dental development).

Tips for Parents

Airway dentistry is effective, but it requires time, and it’s easy to understand that concerned parents want to do something now. If your child is showing signs of sleep-disordered breathing, bringing them in for a screening with Dr. Rosen is paramount. But some immediate measures you can take at home to help your child’s airflow and encourage nasal breathing throughout the night include…

• Mouth taping
• Nasal hygiene before bed that may involve cleaning out the nostrils with saline or blowing out excess retained mucus in the sinus
• Using nasal strips or a nasal dilator (Dr. Rosen can recommend specific products based on your child’s situation)