ABSTRACT
The human face has an important role in social interaction by providing non-verbal clues regarding a person's identity, race, sexual dimorphism, emotion and overall health. Facial palsy (FP) is a devastating experience for a patient with functional and aesthetic sequelae resulting in profound quality of life impairment. Acute flaccid facial paralysis (FFP) may result from congenital absence or acute facial nerve (FN) insults and can have a spectrum of recovery, ranging from complete recovery of facial function to persistence of complete paralysis.
Management of FP can be a daunting task and an outline of approach to FP aids a clinician in treatment, when confronted with an anxious and worried patient and his family. It is incumbent upon the treating clinician to establish a diagnosis for the underlying cause of the facial movement disorder and an understanding of FN anatomy is a prerequisite in its management. An algorithm-based treatment approach based on evidence based medicine (EBM) would help clinicians to cut through the haze of multiple treatment options available and to provide best possible outcomes. This chapter aims to present a systematic approach to a patient presenting with acute FFP of otologic origin.
