Sleep Medicine Center and Neurostimulation Lab, Department of Otorhinolaryngology, University Medical Center Mainz, Germany - University Medical Center Mainz

Our center provides outpatient consulting services in sleep medicine, inpatient full-night polysomnography and outpatient home sleep apnea testing.

Although our clinical focus is on diagnosis and treatment of sleep-disordered breathing (SDB), by means of an extensive network of cooperation with other departments of the University Medical Center in Mainz, in particular the Departments of Neurology, Psychosomatic Medicine, Internal Medicine, Sports & Preventive Medicine, Dental Prothetics and Speech Therapy, our patients may be offered an extensive diagnosis and therapy of insomnia, narcolepsy, parasomnias and sleep-related internal medicine conditions, among others. Regarding treatment modalities for SDB, we provide postive airway therapy, myofunctional oropharyngeal exercise therapy, mandibular advancement device therapy and surgical therapy, including neurostimulation of the hypoglossal nerve.

A dedicated team of fifteen nurses, two administration assistants, one engineer, one biophysist, seven physicians in specialty training and four senior medical consultants provide 24/7 services related to sleep problems to our community within Mainz and in the broader Rhein-Main metropolitan area. We are serving as a reference center for people with more demanding SDB problems from other german metropolitan areas or from abroad.

In addition to our commitment to the provison of high-quality care to our patients, we are also engaged and are having fun in a number of research projects. Apart from participating in multicenter european research endeavors, such as the ESADA (European Sleep Apnea Database) and Sleep Revolution Horizon 2020 projects, we are also pursuing further focused clinical research on SDB. More specifically our group’s research interests involve: the study of the neural mechanisms of breathing control during sleep, algorithmic analyses of sleep-related biosignals, clinical studies of SDB in patients with head & neck cancer, the interplay and phenotypes of comorbid sleep apnea and insomnia, the study and phenotyping of OSA comorbid conditions (in particular non-alcoholic fat liver disease, diabetes and glaucoma), outcomes research after neurostimulation therapy of the hypoglossal nerve for SDB as well as the study of cellular immunity in obstructive sleep apnea patients.

A few years ago, we have introduced with some partners from the aforementioned Departments a really multidisciplinary elective course in Sleep Medicine for undergraduate medical students of the University of Mainz Medical School, that eventually became a part of the core medical students’ curriculum. We have since educated tens of medical students in sleep medicine and sleep research and have (hopefully) infected them with a long-lasting interest in sleep-related matters.

In these ways, we hope and also intend to act as a restless incubator for future generations of health professionals and biomedical scientists in sleep medicine and research in the Rhein-Main metropolitan area and beyond.