![]() ![]() They frequently don’t see them as equals. I was having success with patients and my local sleep physicians, but on a national scale, dentists were having a difficult time developing relationships with physicians. Buy me a drink sometime and I can tell you some interesting stories about anesthetized patients and MRIs! How did the medical field receive the EMA? I learned a lot on those long nights, at the sleep lab, observing patients and titrating EMAs during sleep studies. That’s what really launched us. Fortunately, the sleep doctors’ treatment philosophy and mine were the same – do what’s right for the patient. The results of that study are what landed us an NIH grant. At the end of the study, one patient went from an AHI of 110 all the way down to 10. Through the course of treating those patients and tweaking the design, we saw great results. Little did I know at the time, the study included some moderate to severe sleep apnea cases. As an orthodontist, I first approached a sleep lab in Houston and told them I had created a device that would really help with sleep apnea, I’m not sure they took me seriously.Īfter some persistence, they eventually gave me a study of eight to ten patients. How did you break into the oral appliance market with the EMA? These images are renderings of Frantz Designs new EMA NOW™ temporary oral appliance that is indicated for treatment of mild to moderate snoring and OSA. The appliance had to be simple, inexpensive, and be readily accessible to patients. It was important to me that any product we created checked three boxes. ![]() We developed the first EMA prototype in 1993. The removable safety handles allows the trays to be easily heated for a semi-custom fit and also provides a visible strap length indicator for a simple EMA Advancement Strap length selection. As you know, that’s actually how a lot of sleep practitioners enter the field – as a way to treat themselves. My son, Michael, had a dental lab and we began to tinker with an oral appliance that might help treat my sleep apnea. To be honest, I was tired of getting kicked in the middle of the night! Whenever I stopped breathing in my sleep, my wife would give me a good kick. Frantz to learn how his past drives DSM’s future. MedMark Media’s CEO, Lisa Moler recently sat down with Dr. His company, Frantz Design Incorporated, owns more than 50 foreign and domestic patents which his team plans to leverage to continue improving the Dental Sleep Medicine landscape. He practiced as an orthodontist for 60 years before entering the field of sleep medicine. Frantz is the inventor of the EMA ® dental sleep appliances, and his passion for sleep drives him to continually innovate, work, and invent. Don Frantz, DDS, has a lot on his mind, and he wants to share it with the Dental Sleep Medicine (DSM) profession. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |