Home educational self-muscular stretching exercise for mild to moderate grade Bell’s palsy

Ji Seong Park; Dae Rock Kim; Jin Han Kim; Su Hyeon Jung; Yong Joo Won; Soo Myeong Seo; Woo Shik Kim; Gi-Cheol Kim; Jin Kim

doi:10.55911/JKSBS.23.0026

Home educational self-muscular stretching exercise for mild to moderate grade Bell’s palsy

J Korean Skull Base Soc 2024;19(1):19-30

Published online May 30, 2024

Ji Seong Park¹, Dae Rock Kim¹, Jin Han Kim¹, Su Hyeon Jung¹, Yong Joo Won¹, Soo Myeong Seo¹, Woo Shik Kim¹, Gi-Cheol Kim¹, Jin Kim²

¹Department of Physiotherapy, Dongtan Sacred Heart Hospital, Hallym University College of Medicine, Hwaseong, Korea
²Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Dongtan Sacred Heart Hospital, Hallym University College of Medicine, Hwaseong, Korea

Correspondence to: Jin Kim
E-mail jinsound@gmail.com
ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6634-7750

Received November 2, 2023; Revised December 11, 2023; Accepted December 12, 2023.

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract: Background: It is necessary for facial palsy patients to be educated and proceed consistently with self-stretching exercise considering facial muscular anatomy to maximize the effect of self-educated facial stretching exercise. But there are few references for the patients to specifically learn any methodological techniques that can be implemented in detail. It is aimed to demonstrate the effective and consistent home-educational stretching exercise for facial paralysis patients considering the anatomical features of facial muscles to provide easily-accessible technical methods.
Materials and Methods: For the self-muscular stretching exercise, it is necessary to first learn the anatomical position and contraction direction of the muscles that basically form the facial part because the specific method differs according to the characteristics of each facial muscle. The basic technique consists of firm but gentle stretching of each affected muscle group in the opposite direction from which it contracts that can be combated by regular stretches and gentle isotonic exercises.
Results: It is expected that patients suffering from facial paralysis can enjoy a better quality of life if they can use the facial exercise method that can be performed independently without anyone’s help in consideration of the direction of the facial anatomical muscles.
Conclusions: This study is a method devised to minimize facial contracture by facial palsy in consideration of the anatomical characteristics of facial muscles in order to educate patients and facilitate home training in case of facial palsy.; Keywords : Facial palsy, Massage, Exercise, Physical therapy, Stretching