What Is The Slumber Bump & How Does It Work?

Below is a transcribed video from Dr. Shad Morris, the inventor of the Slumber Bump.

What Is the Slumber Bump?

I'm Dr. Shad Morris, the owner, and inventor of slumberBUMP, our positional sleep therapy device. And I'm bringing this video to you to discuss what I think is an often overlooked part of the sleep study and part of the overall treatment of our patients who have obstructive sleep apnea.

So, positional sleep therapy, or positional therapy, what we call in our industry is often overlooked in the overall assessment of our patient, but is basically offsetting the effects of gravity during sleep, when we notice a big increase in the EHI and the supine position versus all other positions that the patient sleep in.

Positional Sleep Therapy

Positional sleep therapy is very effective just because we have a lot higher compliance rate than we do possibly with the CPAP for sure. And even with oral appliances, I found after 18 years of treating sleep apnea with oral appliances that positional therapy is about 85, 90% tolerated versus the CPAP or some of the other surgeries out there.

Okay, so I developed slumberBUMP. So I had an effective way to keep my patients off their backs in the supine position. And that's why we developed the slumberBUMP. So it's inflatable, it collapses down, you can travel with it and it's very tolerated by our patients. We have a high compliance rate and it makes a big difference in that final sleep study that we're sending back to our referring sleep positions.

Treatment For Positional Sleep Therapy

The answer is absolutely a slumberBUMP is a standalone treatment positional sleep therapy, but it augments the efficiency of oral appliances, the inspire surgery, and also the CPAP. I've got examples of all of those but they're augment each of these mainstream therapies for obstructive sleep apnea, and it's a therapy unto itself when indicated with the sleep study.

Another decision I made early on in 2013 when I invented this was not to make this a prescription product. The whole goal being is so that we could bring access to care to the patients, that's affordable. Yes, insurance will cover it on the e-code, but it's also going to be found on the consumer site so we have better access to care a wider reach to be able to help more people that may or may not come in to see us, to address the serious issues of snoring and sleep apnea.

Sleep Positional Therapy Studies

So as you're aware, there are many studies going back to the early 1900s on how effective positional sleep therapy is. And just for an example, this is a WatchPAT ONE disposable that I did in myself two weeks ago. And you can see the huge discrepancy from the supine position with 17.1 versus non-supine 1.5 which gives me an overall EHI of 3.5. To me, math is really easy. We eliminate the supine position. We alleviate that 17. And now we have an average that's closer to 1.5 and 3.5.

And those are the results that I'm seeing about a 50% decrease with no treatment at all, and about a 50% decrease in EHI when we make the oral appliances and then a varies on the inspire surgery, and also on the CPAP.

I wanted to get this video out to you all as our great American Academy of Dental Sleep Medicine has maybe ground-breaking statement in the last month with oral appliances being first line of therapy. And I believe as well, that positional sleep therapy needs to be right up there. It's either grossly ignored on purpose or there's a lack of education and recognizing the positional component of obstructive sleep apnea that needs to be addressed.

There's no other industry and health that I can think of where we start off with the most aggressive costly, least tolerated procedures such as the CPAP, and some of the surgeries. Then starting out with more tolerable cost-effective and really effective, as well, such as the positional sleep therapy and the oral appliances that we all do.