Clinical Characteristics of 802 Patients with Facial Palsy: Based on Literature Related to Stomach Meridian

Abstract

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to suggest the clinical characteristics and risk factors of facial palsy from the perspective of Korean Medicine.Methods: Medical records of 856 patients, who visited the Korean Medicine hospital with facial palsy from 2004 to 2019, were retrospectively analyzed. The clinical characteristics of facial palsy were suggested by figuring out the distribution of age, sex, occupation, onset season, obesity, modes, signs, symptoms, past and family history.Results: By gender, there were more males (54.6%), and the most common age groups were in their 50s (27.4%) and 40s (23.6%). As for the occupation, unemployed (27.7%) and service and sales workers (14.6%) were the most common, and the onset season was the most common in winter (28.9%). The most common clinical characteristics were overwork (33.0%), mental stress (24.8%), and exposure to cold (19.3%) in modes, ‘none’ (64.3%), postauricular pain (33.2%) in signs, postauricular pain (26.9%), parageusia (14.8%) in symptoms. Hypertension and diabetes were the most common in both past and family history. In particular, the obesity rate of the subjects (59.8%) was much higher than that of Koreans (32.8%).Conclusions: Based on the historical Korean Medicine literature and the results of this study, it is suggested that overwork, stress, exposure to cold, and obesity are identified as risk factors for facial palsy. Furthermore, dysfunction of the stomach meridian is thought to contribute to the cause of facial palsy.