Reliability of grading of facial palsy using a video tutorial with synchronous video recording.

Objective: To determine the intrarater, interrater, and retest reliability of facial nerve grading of patients with facial palsy (FP) using standardized videos recorded synchronously during a self-explanatory patient video tutorial.

Study Design: Prospective, observational study.

Methods: The automated videos from 10 patients with varying degrees of FP (5 acute, 5 chronic FP) and videos without tutorial from eight patients (all chronic FP) were rated by five novices and five experts according to the House-Brackmann grading system (HB), the Sunnybrook Grading System (SB), and the Facial Nerve Grading System 2.

[Video Instruction for Synchronous Video Recording of Mimic Movement of Patients with Facial Palsy].

Photografy and video are necessary to record the severity of a facial palsy or to allow offline grading with a grading system. There is no international standard for the video recording urgently needed to allow a standardized comparison of different patient cohorts. A video instruction was developed.