The efficacy of myofunctional therapy in patients with atypical swallowing

Purpose: The myofunctional treatment (MFT) is a conventional therapy in the treatment of oral disease like atypical swallowing (AS). Functional (standardized surface electromyographic analysis—ssEMG) and clinical (“orofacial muscular evaluation with score” protocol—OMES) analyses were conducted to detect the effects of MFT (10 weeks session) in a group of patients with AS. Methods: ssEMG was performed to analyze the activity of masseter (MM), temporalis (TA), and submental (SM) muscles before (T1) and after (T2) the MFT in a group of 15 patients. OMES was completed at the same timepoints. A Student-t test was carried out to detect differences between T1 and T2 for ssEMG data, and a signed RANK test was used for OMES ones. One-way ANOVA variance test was performed to detect any differences between the different couples of muscles at each timepoint. Results: After MFT, patients showed a shorter duration of the whole act of swallowing (p <.0001), higher intensity of the SM activity (p <.01) than at T1. At T2 masticatory muscles showed lower values for the activation index (ANOVA, p <.0001) and for the spike position (ANOVA, p <.01) than SM. The OMES protocol showed a significant increase for the total evaluation score (p <.01), appearance-posture (p <.01) and functions (p <.001). Conclusions: MFT permits a shortening of the muscular activation pattern and an increase in SM activity. The improvement of oral functionalities is possible and identifiable thanks to the use of standardized protocols.