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Effect of Facial Sensory Re-training on Sensory Thresholds

¹ Department of Prosthodontics,
² Center for Neurosensory Disorders, and
³ Department of Orthodontics, School of Dentistry, 2110 Old Dental Building, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7450, USA; and
⁴ Department of Surgery, Division of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, TX, USA

^* corresponding author, greg_essick{at}dentistry.unc.edu

Nearly 100% of patients experience trauma to the trigeminal nerve during orthognathic surgery, impairing sensation and sensory function on the face. In a recent randomized clinical trial, people who performed sensory re-training exercises reported less difficulty related to residual numbness and decreased lip sensitivity than those who performed standard opening exercises only. We hypothesized that re-training reduces the impaired performance on neurosensory tests of tactile function that is commonly observed post-surgically. We analyzed thresholds for contact detection, two-point discrimination, and two-point perception, obtained during the clinical trial before and at 1, 3, and 6 months after surgery, to assess tactile detection and discriminative sensitivities, and subjective interpretation of tactile stimulation, respectively. Post-surgery, the retrained persons exhibited less impairment, on average, than non-retrained persons only in two-point perception (P < 0.025), suggesting that retrained persons experienced or interpreted the tactile stimuli differently than did non-retrained persons.

KEY WORDS: sensory impairment • orthognathic surgery • sensory thresholds • sensory re-training • trigeminal nerve injury