Is speech therapy useful as a complementary treatment for post-tonsillectomy pain?

Abstract 

Objectives

To evaluate the efficacy of speech therapy for relief of post-tonsillectomy pain in children.

Methods

Fifty patients who underwent tonsillectomy and were randomly divided into three groups were analyzed in this study. Groups I and II received medical and speech therapy including two different phonemes group, and Group III received only medical therapy. For Group I (20 patients) soft palate phonemes and for Group II (20 patients) lips and gingival phonemes were used. The patients who received medical treatment without speech therapy were used as the control group. Postoperative pain levels were recorded with our standard visual analog scale (VAS) forms for each patient during the postoperative 10 days. The pain score of the patients were compared statistically among the three different groups.

Results

The postoperative pain score was lower in Group I as compared to Group II (p=0.001) and III (p=0.045), and it was statistically significant. There was no significant difference regarding postoperative pain scores between Group II and Group III patients (p=0.356).

Conclusion

Speech therapy may cause to strengthen the soft palate muscles and alleviate constant post-tonsillectomy pain. This therapy may be used as a complementary treatment with standard analgesics.

Keywords: Tonsillectomy, Pain, Morbidity, Speech therapy, Soft palate