Effects of Myofeedback and Mime-Therapy on Peripheral Facial Paralysis

Abstract

This paper concerns peripheral facial paralysis, its sequelae and the physiotherapeutic treatment thereof. Following a brief description of the symptoms associated with peripheral facial paralysis and its sequelae, two treatment methods are reviewed. namely, myofeedback and mime-therapy. Next, a description of two research projects is provided; these projects were designed to evaluate the effects of myofeedback and mime-therapy in the rehabilitation of patients suffering from the sequelae of peripheral facial paralysis. Four patients were treated with visual myofeedback over a 2-week period and 22 patients with mime-therapy over a 10-week period. During pre-and posttesting, the patients were photographed and were requested to fill out a social-psychological questionnaire. The photographs were measured for facial asymmetry and appraised on six rating scales (pleasant/unpleasant, relaxed/tense. active/passive, spontaneous/restrained, not-handicapped/handicapped. and normal/abnormal) by naive judges. After myofeedback treatment. none of the variables showed significant improvement. Following mime-therapy, there were no significant changes in the means of the asymmetry measures; however, a significant positive effect was to be Seen in the appraisals given by the judges, and measures of self-judgement were more positive after treatment than before. Finally, the results of both studies are discussed.