BIOMECHANICAL AND NEUROPHYSIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF THE EFFECT AND MECHANISM OF KINESIO TAPE ON HEALTHY FEET

Abstract

Purpose: The Kinesio® Tape (KT) is a kind of elastic tape which becomes a popular aids both in sports and medicine. However, in the view of the confusion and deficiency situation regarding KT research in the past, this project aimed to investigate the effect and mechanism of the KT from the perspective of biomechanics and neurophysiology.
Methods: A total of 20 volunteers (age 26.7±5.7 yr; height 169±6.3 cm; mass 66.3±16.7 kg) were randomly divided into two groups and separately applied the full or no tension KT followed the same foot-arch-enhanced taping method. A motion capture system was utilized to record the highest-speed walking kinematics, such as the movement of the trunk and the lower limbs. Besides, an equilibrium evaluation system was applied to observe the one-foot unstable-basement standing, such as the sloshing amplitude and the movement of the center of gravity (CoG). The data collection was carried out four times including Before Taping (BT), After Taping Immediately (IAT), 24-hour After Taping (24hAT), and Immediately After Removal (IAR).
Results: In the Full-tension group, all the balance-related variables showed declining trends with time which indicated the balance was enhanced. Among them, from BT to IAR, the movement area and the distance of CoG separately decreased 37.72% (pEA＜0.001) and 22.39% (pGCMP＜0.001). In terms of the kinematics, the range of motion of the knees (KROM) increased from BT to IAT in the Full-tension group (1.4%, p=0.023) and No-tension group (1.8%, p=0.011), respectively. Meanwhile, the effects of KT on the two groups are significantly different.
Conclusion: Through the foot-arch-enhanced taping method, both full and no tension KT can affect human balance and gait kinematics, and the effects have a certain degree of timeliness. Notably, the full tension KT can enhance the balance function and the balance-enhanced effect mainly depends on the tension applied on the KT.

Date of Award	2020
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Dundee
Supervisor	Weijie Wang (Supervisor) & Graham Arnold (Supervisor)