[Effectiveness of physiotherapy treatment in peripheral facial palsy. A systematic review]

To make a review and analysis of articles that used physical therapy methods for peripheral facial paralysis (PFP).

The articles were searched in MEDLINE, EMBASE, PEDro y CINAHL data bases. The inclusion criteria used for the selection of the articles were: randomized controlled trials, studies in which patients suffered from PFP, studies in which physical therapy interventions were used for PFP treatment, studies published in periodic journals in between the years of 1970 and 2007, studies published in English. There were two independently reviewers that assessed the quality of the studies thanks to the Jadad scale and finally selected six randomized controlled trials.

Four of six selected articles showed acceptable methodological quality and five of them described movement and facial symmetry improvements, as so as prevention and decrease of synkinesis.

The results of our systematic review study can be very helpful for clinical decision purposes and further clinical trials. However, we consider that it's necessary to reproduce all of the studies selected but with certain methodological adjustments. We recommend that further studies investigate the most effective treatment parameters for adequate PFP treatment.