OD9 Myofunctional Therapy: Has it reached a tipping point to become a standard of care in pediatric SDB treatment?

Summary

Orofacial myofunctional therapy (OMT) represents a novel, non-invasive strategy to treat sleep disordered breathing, including OSA (Guilleminault 2013, Camacho 2015, Bandyopadhyay 2020). Recent evidence has supported its usage in children with OSA and may represent a novel paradigm of therapy that may prevent onset of pediatric OSA (Sullivan 2017). Standardized treatment modalities, models for detection of orofacial myofunctional disorders, and clear understanding of the related phenotypes, however, are yet to be established.  

This symposium will critically evaluate the recent evidence on OMT, while exploring what is clinically known that may be of immediate interest to those working in sleep medicine who wish to apply a robust, multidisciplinary approach including dentists, ENTs, pulmonary, and OMT intervention. 

Learning Objectives

Upon completion of this CME activity, participants should be able to:

• Interpret the fundamentals of a subset of orofacial myofunctional disorders (OMDs) as they may correlate to sleep disordered breathing 
• Recognize how myofunctional therapeutic interventions may improve stability of the pharyngeal walls 
• Appraise the efficacy of the introduction of myofunctional therapy and its potential application into a pediatric SDB clinical treatment algorithm

Target Audience

Sleep specialists, researchers, dental professionals, sleep technologists, public health specialists 

Co-Chairs

Marc Richard Moeller (United States)

Karen Spruyt (France)

Revisiting the pathophysiology of tonsillar airway obstruction 

Denise Dewald (United States)

Short lingual frenulum as a risk factor for sleep disordered breathing in school aged children 

Maria Pia Villa (Italy)

Recurrent sleep related breathing disorder after tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy 

Kevin Boyd (United States)

Orofacial Myofunctional Therapy in the mouth breathing patient: An interdisciplinary approach and its place in sleep medicine 

Silke Weber (Brazil)

Myofunctional Therapy as a 1st line treatment in pediatric SDB: A call to action 

Daniel KK NG (Hong Kong, SAR People's Republic of China)