Cooper University Health Care is now offering Inspire therapy, a surgical therapy for patients with obstructive sleep apnea who are unable to tolerate Continuous Positive Airway Pressure, or CPAP, therapy.
“Patients with sleep apnea often see us after they trial but fail to tolerate CPAP. Many arrive chronically exhausted, frustrated and looking for surgical options which may improve their quality of life,” Cooper otolaryngologist Dr. Brian Swendseid said.
Swendseid helped bring Inspire therapy to Cooper and has now successfully performed the first implantations within the hospital system.
OSA affects 22 million Americans. During sleep, the muscles of the throat relax, which can cause airway collapse and block the flow of oxygen to the brain. The brain senses a lack of oxygen and wakes the body momentarily to take a breath, then falls back asleep. This cycle repeats throughout the night and causes poor, disruptive sleep. When left untreated, OSA can cause vehicle and workplace accidents, worsening mood and memory, stroke, heart attack and even death.
Inspire is an implantable device like a pacemaker. It senses a patient’s natural breathing process while asleep and sends a mild stimulation to the tongue muscles when inhaling. This will stiffen the otherwise relaxed muscles of the airway, preventing collapse and improving the flow of oxygen. The patient uses a small handheld remote to turn Inspire on before bed and off when they wake up.
Inspire has a validated safety and efficacy profile shown in many clinical trials over the last decade. The STAR clinical trial first demonstrated that Inspire patients experienced significant reductions in sleep apnea events and significant improvements in quality-of-life measures over 10 years ago. There have since been over 150 peer-reviewed publications on Inspire and over 50,000 patients implanted across the world.
