Quarterly Hygiene Study Club – How to “Airway” Screen While You Scale

Identifying the Airway Patient in Your Chair to Impact a Life During a Prophy

Course Description

As a Registered Dental Hygienist, you are the frontline of preventive healthcare. However, you are also bound by the clock, balancing clinical excellence with an increasingly compressed schedule. What if you could identify life-altering airway and sleep issues without adding a single minute to your appointment? This course teaches you how to put on your “Airway Lenses” and use the diagnostic time you already have to see the blatantly obvious signs of sleep-disordered breathing. We won’t add to your “to-do” list; we will simply change the way you look at the patient already in your chair.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this session, participants will be able to:

1. Shift the Perspective: Adopt “Airway Lenses” to identify structural and functional “red flags” during the standard hygiene workflow.
2. Screen Without the Clock: Master a high-speed screening protocol that integrates into the medical history review, extra-oral exam, and intra-oral assessment.
3. Identify “Blatantly Obvious” Markers: Recognize the clinical connection between attrition, scalloped tongues, high palates, and sleep-disordered breathing.
4. Master the 30-Second Seed: Learn how to bridge the conversation from clinical findings to a patient-centered airway referral without disrupting the appointment flow.
5. The Ripple Effect™: Understand the RDH’s critical role in the multidisciplinary “Airway Team” to improve patient outcomes beyond the teeth.