Non-Medical Treatments of Drooling by Speech and Language Pathologists in Cerebral Palsy Children: A Systematic Review.

Background: Drooling, commonly observed in cerebral palsy children, negatively impacts different aspects of their lives. There are several treatment options for drooling, with no consensus on a single method as the most effective one. The current systematic review provides an overview of the evidence of the different non-medical intervention methods used by speech and language pathologists to reduce drooling in cerebral palsy children. Methods: A comprehensive and systematic search was conducted in the following electronic databases for publications from 2010-22: PubMed, Scopus, Science Direct, Web of Science, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, and Google Scholar. The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC)and the Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro-P) scale were respectively used to determine the level of evidence and the methodological quality of articles. Results: Out of 2740 articles identified, 15 records met the inclusion criteria and were included in the study. The studies considered in this systematic review differed in the following criteria: design, participant characteristics, types of assessments and treatments, and follow-up periods. Non-medical interventions for drooling were found to be effective in alleviating the severity and decreasing the frequency of drooling. Conclusion: The results showed the effectiveness of nonmedical interventions for drooling in cerebral palsy children. The treatments provided by SLPs can be classified into three categories: oromotor and sensory interventions, behavioral interventions, and the use of Kinesio-tape. Among these, the use of oromotor interventions and oral sensory interventions, alone or combined with other approaches, was the most widely used method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]