Case Study: Restore Medical achieves better tongue implant design and sleep apnea insights with Hexagon MSC Software

Restore Medical - Customer Case Study

Restore Medical, a medical device company, faced the challenge of designing a new tongue implant to treat sleep apnea without negatively affecting critical tongue functions like speech and swallowing. Their R&D team, led by Dr. Paul Buscemi, needed to gain insights beyond simple airway closure, which required sophisticated analysis of the complex musculature of the human tongue. They turned to vendor Hexagon's MSC Software and its products, Marc and Patran, for a solution.

Using Hexagon's Marc for its advanced material modeling and Patran for generating high-quality mesh models, the team created an accurate finite element model of the tongue. This solution allowed them to design and test a virtual prototype of the implant, studying its effects and the kinetics of muscle groups for the first time. The model provided crucial insights into the causes of sleep apnea and the implant's performance, enabling the optimization of the design to minimize negative impacts on patient comfort and critical functions.

Restore Medical

Paul Buscemi

VP of Research and Development