For someone with sleep apnea, specialists may recommend use of a positive airway pressure machine, used with a variety of breathing masks.

Being productive when you’re awake is important. But sleep itself can be productive in its own right.

A night of restful sleep helps us think more clearly, focus better and have quicker reflexes, according to the National Institutes of Health. But there are a host of disorders that affect people’s ability to benefit from a good night’s sleep, including sleep apnea.

The ASAA’s annual Sleeptember campaign in September is designed to create greater conversations about healthy sleep, to raise the awareness of the risks of untreated sleep disorders like sleep apnea and to initiate taking healthy actions.

Lack of sleep can create serious problems. Doctors with the NIH say loss of sleep impairs our reasoning, problem-solving skills and attention to detail. Tired people tend to be less productive at work and have a higher risk for traffic accidents. Short periods of sleep loss can make us moody; over the long term it can affect memory and depression and can even contribute to health problems such as obesity, heart disease, hypertension and diabetes.

Good “sleep hygiene” involves habits that increase our likelihood of having a good night’s sleep. The National Sleep Foundation recommends everything from avoiding naps and alcohol to adjusting bedroom temperatures.

There are many disorders that interrupt sleep, including sleep apnea. According to the American Sleep Apnea Association, there are three types of the disorder: central sleep apnea, obstructive sleep apnea and complex sleep apnea. Obstructive sleep apnea is the most common type.

Sleep apnea is seen more frequently among men than among women, particularly African-American and Hispanic men.

Symptoms of the disorder include:

• Extremely loud snoring, sometimes so loud that bed partners find it intolerable.

• Obesity

• Persistent daytime sleepiness

• Bouts of awakening out of breath during the night

• Frequently waking in the morning with a dry mouth or a headache

While sleepers may have some of these symptoms, only a sleep study in a sleep laboratory or a home sleep study can definitively diagnose the disease.

Lawrence Memorial Hospital’s Sleep Center works with physicians who specialize in sleep disorders. The Sleep Center provides a home-like environment for diagnosis and treatment.

After diagnosis, sleep specialists may recommend use of a positive airway pressure machine, used with a variety of breathing masks. These machines are the most widely used treatment for moderate and severe sleep apnea and have been endorsed by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.

Oral appliances also can be used to treat sleep apnea sufferers. These appliances are worn during sleep in the mouth, just like a sports mouth guard or an orthodontic appliance. The appliances hold the lower jaw forward just enough to keep the airway open and prevent the tongue and muscles in the upper airway from collapsing and blocking the airway.

Brett Urban, a Lawrence dentist who specializes in treating sleep disorders, says about half of the people who should wear a PAP machine won’t do it. The oral appliance might be a good alternative for them.

Urban screens patients for sleep disorders using a questionnaire. “That allows us to open up the topic with the patient,” he said.

Based on the questionnaire, dentists can recommend that patients go to a sleep lab or take a home sleep test that is analyzed by a physician.

Dentists can’t diagnose sleep apnea; the disorder must be diagnosed by a physician. But dentists, Urban said, are in a unique position to get the process started because they see their patients twice a year and can use those visits to encourage patients to seek diagnosis and treatment.

Urban said another benefit is that the oral appliance is covered by medical insurance, even though it’s administered by a dentist.

“I think that will help a lot of patients, too,” Urban said.