The golf world was set ablaze again with the sight of Tiger Woods with Kinesiology Tape on his neck.
The rumors started flying, he is hurt, what is going on, is he done for good this time?
I wanted to write about Kinesiology Tape to give you some more information about where it came from, what it does or reports to do, and if it is beneficial.
Where did it come from?
Kinesiology Tape was developed KT in the 1970’s by a Japanese chiropractor named Dr. Kenzo Kase. It is made of tightly woven elastic fibres, which can be stretched to approximately 120% of their original size. This elasticity is similar to that of human skin.
The Kinesio Taping Method first gained recognition outside of Japan in the 1988 summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea. Introduction to the USA occurred in March 1995 in Portland, Oregon at the Northwest Athletic Trainers Association Annual Clinical Symposium. Europe was next to find the value of Kinesio Tex Tape in 1996. The technique is used by Physical Therapists, Occupational Therapists, Certified Athletic Trainers, Massage Therapist, Doctors of Chiropractic, Medical Doctors, Nurses, and Acupuncturists all around the world.
What does it do?
Some of the purposed benefits of KT tape include: normalization of muscular function, increased vascular and lymphatic flow, reduced pain by neurological suppression, corrected joint misalignment, relieved abnormal muscle tension, and increased proprioception.
All of these fancy words basically mean that it can help decrease pain by having an effect on your nervous system, it can help with the process of ridding your body of bi products that are harmful to you, and it can help with stimulating your body to help heal itself.
Is it beneficial?
There is conflicting evidence as the effectiveness of KT tape in doing what it reports. The problem with research is that often times it is done in an environment that is more controlled. This means that it is under conditions that are not always the same as a person may experience in the real world. There are better ways to structure a research study to leave it with as little bias as we can, but the scientific process is far from perfect.
There is a term called placebo that I feel is beneficial to define and explain. A placebo according to Wikipedia is a substance or treatment that has no intended therapeutic value. We often know of this term from studies on drugs. A control groups is often given a placebo drug which can just be a sugar pill and it acts as a way to compare the results of the patient\\\’s who are actually receiving the drug under the study. The problem with a sham or placebo taping is that any tape that touches the skin has an effect on the body which is hard to determine. We have nerves in our skin that send signals to the brain which can have an effect on the brains response (thus the purported effect on the nervous system).
There is a very specific way that is taught on how to apply the kinesio tape. The direction of the taping, the amount of pull, the goal of the tape, the results of the evaluation and the goal of what the tape is helping to do all need to be taken into consideration as to the value they bring to help the patient reach their goals. When I treat a patient, if they mention a prior treatment or approach that was beneficial to them, I know that they have a psychological attachment to that treatment because they found it beneficial before. I am sure going to use that treatment, because I know there is value attached. The mechanism of KT tape may just be psychological in nature, if you think it works it does. The brain and nervous system, our beliefs, our feelings, our past experiences all play a large role in the physiological response of our bodies to treatment.
We know that when we think about positive things, they tend to happen in our lives. I feel that this holds true in medicine as well, we can\\\’t forget how powerful the mind is in healing our bodies.
