Sleep Medicine
Ronchopathy
Roughly one third of our life is spent sleeping. Sleep is essential for regeneration and relaxation. A good night's sleep and decent rest strengthens the immune system and promotes a pleasant way of life.
Early detection of sleep disorders can certainly help avoid secondary diseases. Timely initiated therapy measures contribute significantly to good health and wellbeing.
The clearly most frequent and most important sleep disorder is snoring (Ronchopathy).
Snoring
Permanent snoring can have a very negative impact on domestic interpersonal relationships. And it can be the cause of daytime fatigue and sleepiness, impairment of work performance, high blood pressure and other cardiovascular diseases.
In addition to overweight, factors like age, gender (males over 40) and consumption of alcohol encourage snoring. But the crucial factor is the anatomy at the back of the mouth and nose.
Diagnostics
This is why we first make an endoscopic assessment of the 3 levels in the ear, nose and throat area where snoring sounds are likely to occur:
- Nasal cavity and nasopharynx
- Oral cavity and oropharynx
- Lower pharynx and larynx
This is the only way the source of the snoring sounds can be located (topodiagnosis) that cannot be done in the sleep laboratory. If necessary and where an examination in alert state is limited, this topodiagnosis can also be carried out under a short anaesthesia in our private clinic.
Examinations in a sleep laboratory serve primarily to diagnose severe sleep apnoea syndroms and respiratory disorders that do not have their cause in the obstruction of the air flow in the respiratory tract the so-called non-obstructive dysnopea. In these cases a respiratory mask with overpressure inside worn at night prescribed by an internal specialist might be advisable.
Therapy
Depending on the ascertained localisation the following methods of treatment or combinations of methods can be applied:
- Nasal concha reduction, removal of adenoids, deviated nasal septum repair
- Soft palate-uvula-plastic surgery by radio frequency and laser technology
- (Partial) palatal tonsil removal by radio frequency and laser technology
- Radio frequency treatment of the tongue base
- Dental splint adjustment
In surgery we only use the latest, almost painless and low bleeding methods like laser and radio frequency technology. Radio frequency technology in the palatal region causes a poor muscle tone to tighten up resp. effects an internal reduction of the soft tissue of the nasal concha, palatal tonsils or lingual tonsil. With super pulsed laser technology any excess tissue of the uvula and soft palate is carefully removed. This is mostly performed as an outpatient procedure under local or general anaesthesia.
Sleep disorders can have a large number of causes. With our technological facilities and long years of experience in this field we can find the sleep solution tailored to your own needs.