[Facial-oral therapy in craniocerebral diseases]

Presented are 16 patients (4 women and 12 men) of a neurological early rehabilitation ward with various neurological initial situations. Diagnoses range from traumatic brain damages to hypoxic brain lesions caused by complications during anaesthesia, from subarachnoid haemorrhages with consecutive complications, to intracerebral haemorrhages. All patients have been examined at the beginning by an ENT specialist and/or phoniatrically. Regarding the structure of the patients' complex neurological symptoms, they were all suffering from more or less severe impairments in the faciooral tract. At the beginning of the multifocal neurological rehabilitation treatment all patients had been submitted to dysarthrophony and/or dysphagia examination according to K. Coombes. We will compare results, objectives and therapeutic developments during the faciooral therapy including physiotherapy and ergotherapy based on the Bobath concept. We will further discuss the periods between occurrence of the damaging event and the onset of multimodular neurological rehabilitation. Further discussed is the influence of secondary complications on the therapeutic development and, finally, the clinical-social outcome of the patients.