Mandibular Advancing Positive Pressure Apnea Remediation Device (MAPPARD)

Abstract

Current research has shown that an increasing number of returning troops from deployments are being diagnosed with obstructed sleep apnea (OSA). OSA causes excessive daytime sleepiness that can endanger the readiness of Soldiers by impacting concentration, decision-making skills, personality change, hypertension, depression, headaches and has been shown to contribute to cardiovascular disease. A main factor for remediation of OSA is Soldier’s compliance with prescribed treatment plans. The two most popular methods for OSA treatment are continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) and the Mandibular Advancing Device (MAD). Both of these devices have known compliance issues, which keep treatment of OSA to roughly 60 percent of those prescribed. We utilized a parameterized upper airway fluid structure–interaction (FSI) simulation to validate our hybrid OSA device (MAPPARD), which addressed the compliance issues found in typical OSA treatment devices. While being 25 percent less advanced than the MAD device and 50 percent less pressure than the CPAP device, our MAPPARD performed better than either current device, thus showing potential to improve Soldier treatment compliance. This study contributes to the ongoing exploration of the role of modeling and simulations for testing and evaluation of medical devices.