The Ares Unicorder by Watermark Medical is a device that can be used to provide an inexpensive, yet effective, self-administered sleep study in the comfort of your own home. The recorder is light weight and is worn comfortably on your forehead during a regular night of sleep.
The Ares Unicorder measures most of the variables in a sleep lab level 1 sleep study and has been shown to closely track the results of such expensive studies. However, at Osborne Family Dental, the take home study is not used to diagnose OSA. True diagnosis of OSA requires a level 1 polysomnogram conducted off-site in a dedicated sleep lab. However, these studies are quite expensive (usually thousands of dollars), and are inconvenient. At our office, the home sleep study is used for three primary purposes:
- To screen patients for the possible presence of OSA.
- To develop an assessment of the severity of the patient’s possible OSA.
- To track the effectiveness over time of the oral appliances made for our patients.
This allows us to perform multiple sleep studies at a small fraction of the cost, in a convenient manner.
To learn more about the Watermark Home Sleep Study, visit the Watermark Medical website here.