Kinesiotape is a therapeutic tape applied over the skin & muscles to reduce pain & inflammation, relax overused or tired muscle during movement, and it works on a 24-hour-a-day basis. Its application has been used to treat everything from headaches to foot pain and all those issues in between.
The tape is functionally unique in that it also has a large elastic component which has the same flexibility as human skin & muscles allowing for full range of motion in contrast to traditional sports taping which is wrapped around a joint strictly for stabilization & support over a short period of time. The tape is manufactured to be the same weight, thickness, & elasticity as the skin & is therefore able to integrate with the body's sensory system naturally providing important feedback on muscle stretch & joint position sense.
The following benefits are associated with Kinesiotape:
- Pain reduction. Enhanced sensory stimulation leading to decreased perception of pain by stimulating the skin's natural pain relieving mechanisms. It also aids the restoration of normal position sense & muscle activation patterns so that damaging & painful movement is avoided.
- Faster healing rate. The tape gently grips & lifts the skin from the underlying tissues which improves lymphatic drainage clearing cellular debris, enhancing the microcirculatory flow, thus reducing swelling (as well as pain & joint limitations caused by increased joint pressues with swelling). This also aids in carrying away inflammatory chemicals by restoring adequate blood flow.
- Early rehabilitation. Improved muscle & joint function allows a patient to achieve early pain-free range of motion as well as initiate strengthening exercises earlier than typical.
- Improved posture. Dynamically assists postural muscles & prevents their overstretching / overuse.
- Structural support. Prevents harmful ranges of motion without a hard end-feel, but rather a smooth controlled limitation.
- Enhanced performance. Restores a muscle's normal activation & function. Improved proprioceptive feedback enables proper biomechanics during activity.
- Injury prevention. Re-establishes proprioception by adding additional neural feedback to the brain on joint position sense & thus functional joint stability. This will aid in preventing harmful paths of motion along with a smooth controlled limitation of potentially harmful end ranges of motion.
- Treatment between treatments. With a typical application period of 3-4 days patients are maintaining treatment benefits between manual treatment sessions.
