Bell’s palsy is the most common cause of one-sided facial nerve paralysis. It occurs in 1 to 4 per 10,000 people per year. Risk factors include diabetes, a recent upper respiratory tract infection, and pregnancy. The condition normally gets better by itself with most achieving normal or near-normal function.
About Bell’s palsy in brief
Bell’s palsy is the most common cause of one-sided facial nerve paralysis. It occurs in 1 to 4 per 10,000 people per year. About 1.5% of people are affected at some point in their lives. Risk factors include diabetes, a recent upper respiratory tract infection, and pregnancy. The facial nerve controls a number of functions, such as blinking and closing the eyes, smiling, frowning, lacrimation, salivation, flaring nostrils and raising eyebrows. The condition normally gets better by itself with most achieving normal or near-normal function. Corticosteroids have been found to improve outcomes, while antiviral medications may be of a small additional benefit. The eye should be protected from drying up with the use of eye drops or an eyepatch. Surgery is generally not recommended. In a few cases, bilateral facial palsy has been associated with acute HIV infection. In some cases, the simplexx virus has been identified as a simplex virus type 1 in a majority of cases. Babies can be born with facial palsy and the majority of these are diagnosed as a result of a brain tumor, meningitis, stroke, Ramsay Hunt syndrome type 2, myasthenia gravis, and Lyme disease. The paralysis is of the infranuclearlower neuron type. It is thought that as a. result of inflammation of the facial nerve, pressure is produced on the skull within the bony canal where it exits the nerve. Patients with Bell’s palsy are not considered to have an underlying cause for which an underlying condition can be considered to be the cause.
In rare cases, it can occur on both sides of the face resulting in total facial paralysis. Although defined as a mononeuritis, people diagnosed with Bell’s palsy may have multiple neurological symptoms. These include facial tingling, moderate or severe headacheneck pain, memory problems, balance problems, ipsilateral limb weakness, and a sense of clumsiness that are ‘unexplained by facial nerve dysfunction’. It can trigger an increased sensitivity to sound known as hyperacusis. The nerve innervates the stapedius muscle of the middle ear, causing normal sounds to be perceived as very loud,, and dysacusis are possible but hardly ever clinically evident. It also carries taste sensations from the anterior two-thirds of the tongue, through the chorda tympani nerve. Because of this, people with the condition may present with loss of taste sensation in the anterior 23 of the Tongue on the affected side. It most commonly occurs in people between ages 15 and 60. Males and females are affected equally. It’s named after Scottish surgeon Charles Bell, who first described the connection of the Facial nerve to the condition. It has been linked to a viral infection that results in swelling. Some viruses are thought to establish a persistent infection without symptoms, e. g., the varicella zoster virus and the Epstein–Barr virus, both of the herpes family.
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This page is based on the article Bell’s palsy published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 04, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
