17^th Global Neuroscience Conference

Biography

Biography: Amira Elaalem

Abstract

Bells palsy is the idiopathic seventh cranial nerve palsy. It is the most common cause of abrupt onset of unilateral facial weakness. The natural history of Bell’s palsy is encouraging for most of the patients since total recovery of facial function is expected, nevertheless additional long term poor outcomes occur in minority of them and can be devastating. Currently, no cause for Bell’s palsy has been identified in the literature, but in Sudan there were very few information can be retrieved.

Hence the overall objective of the study was to assess the potential relative risk factors of Bell’s palsy in Sudanese patients. 

Methodology

This is analytic case control multicenter based study. Conducted in Khartoum state physiotherapy centers (three in hospital and seven in private sectors) July - November 2016. The sample size was 70 cases of Bell’s palsy and 140 controls from the same sample area. The cases that fulfilled the inclusion criteria were collected by a method of total coverage during the working hours. Well constructed questionnaires were filled during the interview by a trained physiotherapist. The collected data was then analyzed using SPSS software program, version 20.

Results

The result showed the statistically significant factors (p value < 0.05) are: recurrence of Bell’s palsy ten times more in affected patients, the hereditary factor 2.5 times more in affected patients. In contrast to the other factors were non statistical significance (p value > 0.05) are: recent vaccination, pregnancy, diabetes, hypertension, chronic diseases, immunosuppressive drugs, smoking and alcohol and.

Conclusion

The study concluded that, statistical significant factors are frequency of recurrence of Bell’s palsy, genetic susceptibility. The rest of risk factors were statistical non significant.

 We recommend more studies deserve to be done to determine the type of inheritance in Sudan and study the cause of recurrence