Development of a sensitive clinical facial grading system

Abstract

Clinicians require a reliable and valid method of evaluating facial function after facial nerve injury. This tool should be clinically relevant and easy to administer, provide a quantitative score for reporting purposes, and be sensitive enough to detect clinically important change over time or with treatment. The proposed facial grading system has all essential information, including precise definitions for each item, presented on one page. The facial grading system is based on the evaluation of resting symmetry, degree of voluntary excursion of facial muscles, and degree of synkinesis associated with specified voluntary movement. Different regions of the face are examined separately with the use of five standard expressions. All items are evaluated on point scales, and a cumulative composite score is tabulated. Construct validity was addressed by comparing the proposed facial grading system to prerehabilitation and postrehabilitation treatment scores of 19 patients with varying degrees of facial nerve injury. All patients had documented change in a controlled study of feedback training. The proposed system reports results in a more continuous manner with a wider response range than the House-Brackmann grades. Each component of the grading system is sensitive to change and individually contributes to a change in the composite score. Tests of interrater reliability are currently near completion.