Electrically Induced Blink for the Prevention of Ocular Symptoms and Blurred Vision in Patients With Acute Facial Nerve Palsy.

: Facial nerve palsy causes blurred vision and ocular discomfort due to deficits in blinking and eye closure. The objective of this study was to determine whether eye-blinks could be elicited by electrical stimulation and whether electrically induced blink would have an effect on the visual acuity and ocular symptoms in patients with acute facial nerve palsy. : The zygomatic branch of the facial nerve of fifteen participants with acute facial nerve palsy was electrically stimulated in order to elicit a blink.

Effect of pulse waveforms on movement amplitudes and perceived discomfort in electric muscle stimulation in unresolved facial nerve palsy.

Studies on the effects of the pulse waveform used in electrical muscle stimulation on the activations and perceived discomfort of the waveform have been mainly executed on limb muscles with variable results, however, knowledge of these effects on facial muscles is currently lacking. We studied two waveforms, square wave and sinusoidal wavelet, for the activation of the frontalis muscle in 9 individuals with unresolved facial nerve palsy. Both waveforms produced a movement that was greater in amplitude compared with the maximal voluntary movement of the affected side in 8 participants and at least as great as the healthy side's maximal voluntary movement in 4 participants.

Facial muscle reanimation by transcutaneous electrical stimulation for peripheral facial nerve palsy.

Reanimation of paralysed facial muscles by electrical stimulation has been studied extensively in animal models, but human studies in this field are largely lacking. Twenty-four subjects with a peripheral facial nerve palsy with a median duration of three years were enrolled. We studied activations of four facial muscles with electrical stimulation using surface electrodes.