SportLogia (Jun 2017)
Efficience of kinesio taping in prevention and rehabilitation of sport injuries
Abstract
Kinesio Tape is becoming more widely used in sports physiotherapy and for postural rehabilitation. Many professional athletes use the tape to support injured, fatigued, or overused muscles. The tape’s construction is unique, featuring a highly elastic property that engages both the muscles and fascia. It is claimed that KT supports injured muscles and joints and helps relieve pain by lifting the skin and allowing improved blood and lymph flow. The aim of this review was to evaluate, using meta-analysis, the effectiveness of KT in the treatment and prevention of sports injuries. Electronic databases including SPORTDiscus, Scopus,MEDLINE, ScienceDirect and sports medicine websites were searched using keywords ‘kinesio taping/tape’. The efficacy of KT in pain relief was trivial given there were no clinically important results. There were inconsistent ranges of motion outcome results, with at least small beneficial results seen in two studies, but trivial results in two other studies across numerous joint measurements. There was a likely beneficial effect for proprioception regarding grip force sense error, but no positive outcome for ankle proprioception. KT had some substantial effects on muscle activity, but it was unclear whether these changes were beneficial or harmful. In conclusion, there was little quality evidence to support the use of KT over other types of elastic taping in the management or prevention of sports injuries. KT may have a small beneficial role in improving strength, range of motion in certain injured subjects and force sense error compared with other tapes, but further studies are needed to confirm these findings.
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