So, unfortunately, dental sleep medicine is the term we use to describe dentists who do not restrict their practice, but are particularly interested in treating sleep issues and there is no specialty recognised by AHPRA or of the ADA or anything.
However, there’s a general acceptance that some people know more than others. My other hat, as well as being a private clinician at Absolute Sleep, is I’m Associate Professor at UWA and I run the dental component of a Graduate Diploma. It’s called a Graduate Diploma in Dental Sleep Medicine. And so there is a university based group of eight university based training that can be done Australia wide. We’ve had approximately 34 graduates. So what I can say is, is at least 34 dentists in Australia who should know more than the average dentist about how to treat this problem using oral appliances.
So, if you’ve been diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea and you might have failed CPAP, you may choose not to use CPAP, but then you really need to try and find a dentist who has expertise in the area. So a really easy way to look for it is to look for their qualifications. And if you see the letters GDDSM or graduate diploma in dental sleep medicine, you can be fairly confident that you’ll be treated well within Western Australia. Within Perth, we have eight graduates of our program.
So there’s at least eight dentists who are who are qualified or who have had further training in the area and understand what thier treating.
