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Is Therapeutic Taping Effective for Treating Chronic Back or Neck Pain and Disability?

Posted on: 11/23/2015
Low back pain and neck pain are widespread, costly and persistent conditions among adults in the United States. Fortunately, these conditions tend to improve and are often self-limiting. Unfortunately, they often run the risk of going on chronically and rate of the back or neck pain returning is quite high. There are stacks of research aimed at reducing the costs of these human conditions from lost days of work to being deemed permanently disabled.

Of the available conservative treatments for treating spine pain, therapeutic taping has been widely adopted by Physical Therapists and other health care providers. Tape applications to improve a sore joint’s performance has grown in use internationally from the sports arena to the industrial work setting. The purported benefits and different properties of varied types of tape have made it a useful tool in rehabilitating an injury or reducing the risk of reinjuring a joint.

Despite the popularity of therapeutic taping and the growing use in clinical and field rehabilitative settings, there are still substantial gaps in the supportive research. Ms. Vanti and her team of PT/PhD clinician scientists set about to review the quality studies on the effects of elastic and nonelastic taping for spinal pain and disability reduction. They reviewed 5,531 studies and found eight randomized controlled trial studies that met their study criteria and targeted the adult population of interest.

The results for treating persons with chronic low back pain with elastic tape (versus the sham tape job or no treatment) found no significant improvements in pain ratings immediately and two weeks following their treatments. Little evidence was found supporting the use of elastic tape one month following the intervention. Similarly, results from the one quality study on treating persons with chronic low back pain with nonelastic tape (versus the sham tape job or no treatment) found poor evidence for differences in pain ratings immediately and one months following the intervention.

The results from the studies evaluating neck pain treatments divided their findings into a nonspecific whiplash type neck injury versus a specific neck condition (ie. bulging disk or arthritis). The outcomes for both elastic and nonelastic tape treatments on both types of neck injuries found similar "very low-quality evidence" in the tape improving pain or disability more than the placebo tape treatment.

Although different types of tape were applied for different injuries and conditions in many solid and separate investigations, the results found no firm support for their effectiveness. The current research does not support the use of elastic over nonelastic tape treatments. Future studies with larger sample sizes and longer term follow up assessments were recommended for improving the power and scope of the effectiveness of therapeutic tape application.

References:
Vanti C., PT, et al. Effect of Taping on Spinal Pain and Disability: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Trials. In PHYSICAL THERAPY. April 2015. Vol. 95, Pp. 493-506.

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