Ultrashort Wave Therapy,TDP Combined With Electric Pulse Therapy Of Intermediate Frequency For Peripheral Facial Paralysis

Objective: facial neuritis is a common neurological disease affecting people of all ages with higher prevalence in men than women. Facial neuritis is generally not seasonally or geographically restricted. However, higher incidents are often observed during spring and winter. Typically, the onset of facial neuritis is sudden and the symptom involves paralysis of one side of the mimetic muscles. Although the pathogenesis is still under debate, a number of therapeutic strategies are currently used to treat the disease. The most common strategy uses antiviral medication and Prednisone combined with acupuncture and naturopathy. Increasing evidence indicates that therapeutic strategies including ultrashort wave therapy, undamped medium frequency sinusoidal electrotherapy, low frequency electrotherapy,rehabilitation training of facial muscles, biofeedback therapy or a combination thereof are effective to facial paralysis. This study summarizes the clinical observations of combining ultrashort wave therapy and TDP with undamped medium frequency sinusoidal electrotherapy in the treatment of facial neuritis to ameliorate the symptoms and prevent sequela.Methods: Ninety~eight patients with facial neuritis at the acute stage(within 6days after diagnosis) were randomly assigned into three experimental groups. The control group was treated with routine medication followed by acupuncture and moxibustion on the seventh day of admission. Experimental group A was treated with same therapy as the control group but in combination with TDP and ultrashort wave therapy from the first day of admission. Experimental group B was treated with the same therapy as the group A but in combination with undamped medium frequency sinusoidal electrotherapy on the seventh day of admission. The recovery of the patient was evaluated after 30 days of treatment based on the House-Brackmannn(H-B)facial nerve grading system.Results: 1. Three patients in the control group, one patient in experimental group Aand two patients in experimental group B terminated their treatment voluntarily due to personal reason and were excluded from statistical analysis. Other than these six patients, no untoward effect was observed in other patients and all data obtaine 天were included in the final analysis.2. No statistical significance was observed in the H-B grading before treatment, age,gender or site of onset in any of the three groups(p > 0.05). However, the H-B grading after treatment for 30 days is statistically significant from the H-B grading before treatment in each group.3. The H-B grading in group A and B is statistically significant from the control group(p < 0.05). The curative rate of the control group is 16.67% with a total response rate of 83.33%. In contrast, the curative rate of group A and B is 25.81% and38.71% with total response rate of 90.32% and 93.55%, respectively. In summary, the therapeutic strategy used in group A and B is statistically more effective than the strategy used in the control group(p<0.05). Moreover, the therapeutic strategy used in group B is statistically more effective than the strategy used in group A(p<0.05).Conclusions:In the routine treatment for facial neuritis, only medication or even combined with acupuncture and moxibustion therapy is not effective to cure the disease. The patients are psychologically stressed due to the fact that the disease symptoms involve facial muscles and are eager for effective treatment. In this study,we found combination of naturopathy that can repair facial nerve function with low irritability is an effective option to treat facial neuritis, especially in the acute stage and decubation stage. during decubation, the undamped medium frequency sinusoidal electrotherapy is effective to repair facial muscle function and prevent sequela.