Abstract
Introduction
Trismus is a restriction in the buccal opening up to 3.5cm and is one of the most frequent side effect of head and neck regions radiotherapy. This condition affects simple daily activities such as chewing, swallowing speaking and even buccal hygiene, leading to not only physical but emotional damages to the subjects. This puts in evidence the need to find treatments to revert or soften this condition.
Objective
This study investigates the behavior of masseter and suprahyoid muscles during swallowing before and after the cryotherapy associated to the massage in patients post buccal neoplasm with trismus due to radiotherapy.
Material and method
The final sample was composed of 8 subjects, aged between 40 an 64 years, both female and male with buccal opening equal to or smaller than 3.5cm. Two electromyographic evaluations were conducted to perform this research, one in the beginning and one in the end of the treatment. The study was composed of 15 treatment sessions, once a week, consisting of cryotherapy maneuvers and massage in masseters and supra-hyoids muscle groups.
Result
There was a significant difference in the behavior of the supra-hyoid muscles group, this fact was not observed in the masseter muscles group.
Conclusion
The study concluded that after the intervention with cryotherapy and massage sessions, was observed a significant difference in the behavior of the upperhyoid muscles group and an improvement of the subjects’ mouth opening capacity. However, the results of this study must be confirmed in a larger sample size.
Descriptors:
Trismus; mouth neoplasms; cryotherapy; massage
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