The effect of bundle care on the prevention of the opening mouth difficulty in nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients after radiotherapy

Objective: To investigate the effects of the bundle care on prevention the mouth opening difficulty in nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients after radiotherapy.Methods: One hundred and forty-eight nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients treated with radiotherapy were randomly divided into the treatment group(75 cases) and control group(73 cases).Two groups were treated with conventional care,and the treatment group were additionally treated with the bundle care.The incisor distances in all cases were measured before radiotherapy,at the end of radiotherapy and after 3 months of radiotherapy.The difficulty degrees of opening mouth in two groups treated with radiotherapy were observed for 1 year.Results: The opening mouth difficulty in two groups were found during the radiotherapy.The differences of the difficulty in mouth opening between two groups during the period of radiotherapy and after 3 months of radiotherapy were not statistically significant(P>0.05).The difficulty degrees in mouth opening in treatment group were significantly lower than that in control group after 6,9 and 12 month of radiotherapy(P<0.01).Conclusions: The bundle care can effectively reduce the incidence and degree of mouth opening difficulty.