Sleep medicine education should be part of the dental school curriculum, according to a study published in the June issue of the Journal of the American Dental Association.
The cover story, “How Should Dental Sleep Medicine Be Integrate into the Maxillofacial Pain Specialty? A Narrative Review,” examines the literature on maxillofacial pain and sleep disorders, reviews the current state of sleep medicine education, and outlines the role of maxillofacial pain specialists in screening and managing sleep disorders associated with maxillofacial pain.
“Sleep disorders can lead to increased pain and vice versa,” the study authors note in the report. “Pain, including maxillofacial pain, can affect sleep quality, leading to poor health, which in turn can affect sleep quality.”
The article notes that while graduate maxillofacial pain programs offer sleep medicine education, predoctoral dental programs typically do not.
“Maxillofacial pain specialists play a vital role in the screening and management of sleep disorders,” the authors state. “Sleep medicine education should also be incorporated into pre-doctoral dental curricula to train future oral health care providers to recognize sleep disorders that are often misdiagnosed and mistreated, leading to detrimental health outcomes.”
Other articles in the June issue of JADA discuss animal-assisted therapy for pediatric patients, oral health care use among Medicare Advantage plan beneficiaries, and the association between periodontal disease and hospitalizations.
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