Study on the Correlation between Bell's Palsy Severity and Facial Thermography

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate that thermal imaging is objective and effective to evaluate the severity of Bell’s palsy. We investigated 19 cases of patients in college of Oriental Medicine, Iksan Oriental medical hospital at Wonkwang university who were diagnosed with Bell’s palsy. The degree of palsy was evaluated with House-Brackmann grading system(HBGS) before treatment, then the thermal difference of the face was calculated by thermal imaging, and finally the correlation between HBGS and thermal difference was analyzed. The significance correlation was found between HBGS and thermal imaging’s thermal difference. According to the images taken from 17 patients' DITI’s temperature value and HBGS’s palsy grade, they significantly were correlated. As thermal imaging’s thermal differences got larger in number, the palsy grade had increased. These results suggest that thermal imaging identified to be a relatively objective examination method for evaluating the severity of Bell’s palsy. 