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Facial taping as biofeedback to improve the outcomes of physical rehab in Bell’s palsy: preliminary results of a randomized case–control study

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Abstract

Purpose

This study aimed to investigate the efficacy of taping in association with Kabat rehabilitation to ameliorate the outcomes of Bell’s palsy.

Methods

This case–control study was conducted on hospital-outbound patients. 20 patients over 18 years affected from Bell’s palsy were recruited at the onset of the disease (< 5 days). Patients were simply randomized into two groups. Patients in group A underwent exclusively Kabat rehabilitation, while patients in group B were treated by combining facial taping and Kabat. Facial palsy severity was evaluated with ADS assessment at baseline (T0), 1 week (T1), 1 month (T2) and 3 months (T3) after treatment. One-way ANOVA was used to compare ADS scores variance between groups to evaluate differences between the two treatments.

Results

Both groups presented statistically significant differences comparing the baseline with the other observational points (within analysis) (p < 0.0001). Patients in group B showed a statistically significant improvement compared to group A (between analyses) (p < 0.0001), especially at T2 (p < 0.01).

Conclusions

Facial taping combined with Kabat rehabilitation allowed to reduce the time of recovery and improved the outcomes of Bell’s palsy.

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Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Otolaryngology Department, University of Perugia, Piazza Menghini 1, 06129, Perugia, Italy

    Arianna Di Stadio, Valeria Gambacorta, Fabrizio Longari & Giampietro Ricci

  2. Department of Sense Organs, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy

    Massimo Ralli & Antonio Greco

  3. Otolaryngology Department, Silvestrini Hospital, Perugia, Italy

    Jenny Pagliari

Authors
  1. Arianna Di Stadio
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  2. Valeria Gambacorta
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  3. Massimo Ralli
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  4. Jenny Pagliari
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  5. Fabrizio Longari
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  6. Antonio Greco
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  7. Giampietro Ricci
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Contributions

ADS, JP and VG study design; ADS and MR article writing; ADS and GR analysis of data and definition of conclusion; AM literature research and review; JP, VG and FL collection of clinical data; AG critical review.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Arianna Di Stadio.

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Di Stadio, A., Gambacorta, V., Ralli, M. et al. Facial taping as biofeedback to improve the outcomes of physical rehab in Bell’s palsy: preliminary results of a randomized case–control study. Eur Arch Otorhinolaryngol 278, 1693–1698 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00405-020-06193-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00405-020-06193-3

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