Seniors design user-friendly, affordable mouthguard to aid sleep apnea
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More than 50 million Americans are estimated to have obstructive sleep apnea, according to the National Sleep Foundation. Obstructive sleep apnea, is a chronic condition where a blockage or narrowing of the airway keeps air from moving through the windpipe while sleeping.
Five seniors in the Richard and Loan Hill Department of Biomedical Engineering are working to make a more affordable, user-friendly mouthguard.
Through their senior design course, Vayun Aryan, Syed Rahman, Tomasz Rysiewicz, Nishant Sadangi, and Nathan Manabat created a mouthguard that moves the jaw forward to tighten the muscles that typically relax in those with sleep apnea to allow for better airway flow resulting in better sleep.
“Our goal was to create a novel and unique way to create a mandibular advancement device (MAD) for the market,” Rahman said. “What makes our device unique is that it’s very simple. With the current devices out there, there’s a lot of moving parts and it’s complicated to figure out how to wear it or how much air you need.”
The current gold standard treatment for sleep apnea is a CPAP machine, which delivers air pressure through a mask to cover a user’s mouth and nose. The teams’ mouthguard design requires less cleaning and is less cumbersome of a method.
“A lot of our first designs were very complicated and had many moving parts,” Aryan said. Each team member initially proposed a concepts and together, they compiled these designed for the best version. Their design was based their design on a patented model from ProSomnus EVO GuidedÒ, the company’s first bioengineered oral device to dilate the velopharynx and the oropharynx.
Their final MAD design is made of a bio-compatible FDA-approved resin for cluster devices, a standard for MADs.
The team has been supported by their sponsor, Dr. Dustin Goetz, a UIC BME alumnus and current dentist in Aurora, IL. As their sponsor, Goetz provided the group with constant feedback and insights from a healthcare professional perspective. Goetz is also the founder of the Midwest Sleep Clinic.
Next, the team hopes to eventually implement the mouthguard in sleep clinics and dental offices throughout the Chicagoland area.
The annual College of Engineering Senior Design Expo will be Friday, April 24, from 1 pm to 4 pm at the Credit 1 Union Arena.