Facial Nerve Disorders Care

The Rush Approach to Facial Nerve Disorders Care

Facial paralysis and other facial nerve disorders can have a serious impact on your daily life. Even simple pleasures, like having a conversation with a loved one or enjoying a meal, can be challenging.

Our highly skilled team can help. We offer compassionate, cutting-edge care for people of all ages who experience facial paralysis and weakness due to illness or trauma. This includes advanced surgical procedures that can improve both your appearance and your ability to do things like smile, open and close your eyes, eat, drink and talk.

Our team has expertise treating even the most complex cases. We can often provide treatment for people who have been told there is no hope of improvement, or who did not qualify for certain procedures in the past.

Rush Excellence in Facial Nerve Disorders Care

• A team dedicated to you: Our Facial Nerve Disorders Program in the Department of Otorhinolaryngology brings together specialists from facial plastic and reconstructive surgery, neurotology, neurology, audiology, speech-language pathology, neurosurgery, physical therapy and occupational therapy. Depending on your condition, you may not need all of these specialists; like your treatment plan, your care team will be tailored to you.
• Comprehensive approach: Because facial nerve disorders are life-altering, affecting many functional and emotional aspects of a person's life, care at Rush goes beyond the OR. Our team of experts is dedicated to helping people with facial paralysis or weakness regain facial movement and symmetry, as well as cope with the psychosocial effects of facial paralysis.
• Dedicated specialists: Our facial nerve specialists are dedicated to treating only conditions affecting the head and neck, including facial paralysis. This kind of highly focused expertise is not available at most other centers in the Chicago area.
• The most advanced treatments: We offer all of the latest facial reanimation procedures and techniques, including dual innervation and selective neurectomy, and we were one of the first centers in the U.S. to offer gracilis muscle transfer — a surgical procedure that can restore your ability to smile after facial paralysis.