| 제목 |
Improvement of Drooling with Daily Neuromuscular Electrical Stimulation in a child: A Case Report. |
| 소속 |
St. Vincent’s Hospital, College of Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea, Republic of Korea, Department of Rehabilitation Medicine1 |
| 저자 |
Hyehoon Choi1*, JungGeun Park1, Seong Hoon Lim1, Joon Sung Kim1, BoYoung Hong1† |
Introduction: Drooling do harms on basic function and social relationship even in children. Diseases affecting the facial and oromotor muscles such as cerebral palsy, myopathy, and several genetic disorders could cause drooling. There are a variety of methods to manage drooling such as oral myofunctional therapy, behavior-modifying techniques, medication, botulinum toxin injection and surgical methods. We report a case in which drooling was improved by neuromuscular electrical stimulation in a child with muscular dystrophy.
Case presentation: A 4-year-old girl with muscular dystrophy had severe drooling. Twenty-eight to 30 scarf bibs were needed daily due to her overflowing saliva. She could maintain sitting but was not able to change her position. Muscle tone was generally hypotonic including all extremities and facial muscles. Her buccinator and hyoid muscles were stimulated with VitalStim® five times a week. No other dysphagia therapy was performed except to give a cue to swallow saliva. Drooling had gradually decreased so the scarf bib was not needed on weekdays in the fourth week of the neuromuscular electrical stimulation treatment. However, she still needed 4-5 scarf bibs on weekends without rehabilitation. In the sixth week, the drooling improved so that scarf bibs were not needed even on the weekend. As drooling improved, electrical stimulation was ceased. However, drooling increased again since the third week of discontinuation.
Conclusion: Several studies have shown that muscular strength can be maintained or improved when long-term neuromuscular electrical stimulation is applied to patient with muscular dystrophy. According to our case, applying neuromuscular electrical stimulation to the buccinator and hyoid muscles could be effective in the management of drooling for a short-term. However, the efficacy does not maintain after the discontinuation.
|
|
|
