Can kinesio tape be used as an ankle training method in the rehabilitation of the stroke patients?

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Highlights

  • This is one of the few studies that comprehensively investigated the effects of KT application to the tibialis anterior on rehabilitation outcomes in patients with stroke.

  • The results of this study suggest that the use of KT as an adjunct to the conventional rehabilitation program are effective.

  • Kinesio tape can be used as an ankle training method like as peroneal nerve stimulators, FES and AFO to improve walking ability, motor recovery, spasticity, ambulation capacity, aerobic capacity and HRQoL.

Abstract

Objective

To investigate the effects of the kinesio tape application to the tibialis anterior on rehabilitation outcomes of the stroke patients.

Design and setting

Twenty patients with stroke were allocated into two groups: the first group of ten patients was assigned to receive kinesio tape in addition to the conventional rehabilitation program while a second group of 10 patients was assigned to receive a conventional rehabilitation program only.

Main outcome measures

The clinical variables and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) were evaluated at baseline and at the end of the forth week.

Results

The present study showed that kinesio tape application to the tibialis anterior has significant effects on motor recovery of the lower extremity, spasticity, ambulation capacity, HRQoL and gait compared to the control group and baseline.

Conclusions

The results of this study suggest that kinesio tape can be used as an ankle training method.

Introduction

Stroke is one of the serious causes of long-term disability in older population. Stroke survivors usually have neurological deficits and complications such as motor weakness, spasticity, poor balance, communication disorders, depression and other affective symptoms, and cognitive impairments due to stroke [1], [2]. Even, after completing standard rehabilitation, many people are left with a walking deficit and approximately 50%–60% of stroke patients still experience some degree of motor impairment, and approximately 50% are at least partly dependent in activities-of-daily-living (ADL) [3], [4], [5].

Post-stroke gait dysfunction is among the most investigated neurological gait disorders and is one of the major goals in post-stroke rehabilitation [3]. Stroke survivors walk slower than the healthy subjects and have poor selective motor control. They use synergistic mass patterns of the affected lower leg rather than isolated joint movements during a walk [3], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10].

The features of stroke gait are identified by stiff-legged gait (reduced range of knee motion) and drop foot (lack of ankle dorsiflexion during swing) leading to raised hip during swing [7], [8], [10]. In post-stroke patients, the function of cerebral cortex becomes impaired, while that of the spinal cord is preserved. Specific training strategies that acting on the distal physical level and influencing the neural system can be used to reorganize the cortex for walking [3]. It has been asserted that ankle movement training facilitates brain reorganization [11], [12]. Dobkin et al. [13] demonstrated that the supraspinal sensorimotor network for the neural control of walking can be assessed indirectly by ankle dorsiflexion.

Kinesio taping (KT) has long been used as an adjunct during the rehabilitation program in various diseases to strengthen weakened muscles, control joint instability and muscle tones, assist with postural alignment, relieve soft tissue inflammation and pain, relax overused muscles, improve active range of motion, balance, functional use and gait ability [5], [14], [15], [16], [17], [18].

Although there has been extensive interest in the literature about KT application to various lower extremity muscles of the stroke patients, limited data exist to support the effectiveness of KT application on rehabilitation outcomes in these population. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of the KT application to the tibialis anterior, in order to train ankle movement, on motor recovery, spasticity, gait, ADLs, depression and HRQoL in patients with stroke.

Section snippets

Participants

Twenty patients with stroke (duration of less than 12 months, 10 M, 10 F) were consented to participate in the study. We recruited participants from inpatient rehabilitation department of an academic rehabilitation hospital. Stroke had been diagnosed clinically by a neurologist and confirmed by a computed tomography scan or MRI before admission to the hospital for rehabilitation. The exclusion criteria included recurrent stroke, severe aphasia, impaired level of consciousness (≤15 points on the

Results

The demographic and clinical characteristics of the groups are shown in Table 1 and Table 2. There were no differences between the groups as regards age, sex, duration of the disease, affected side of the patients, etiology, BMRS, FAC, MAS, MMSE, BDI, Barthel score, sensorial abnormality, 6MWT, SF-36 score at the beginning of the study.

Table 3 and Table 4 show the assessment measures of each group before and after the treatment. Compared with the control group and the baseline, a statistically

Discussion

The primary goals of rehabilitation programs in patients with stroke include to improve weakness, spasticity and poor balance and ultimately enable the patients to walk, manage and perform their daily activities independently [1], [2], [3], [4].

Walking ability of the patients with stroke has been found to be associated with their motor and sensory recovery, balance, spasticity, aerobic capacity and the level of independence, function and ADLs [4], [6], [31]. In addition, walking ability may

Study limitations

The current study has some limitations. The sample size was small and the patients participated in the study were only from one rehabilitation hospital. Despite the fact that, our hospital is the largest national rehabilitation hospital in Turkey and accepts patients from all over the country, our sample cannot be considered as representative of the general population of patients with stroke.

Because it is difficult to elicit information from nonresponsive patients, patients who had an impaired

Conclusions

Given these limitations, this is one of the few studies that comprehensively investigated the effects of KT application to the tibialis anterior on clinical variables and HRQoL in the stroke population. The results of this study suggest that the use of KT as an adjunct to the conventional rehabilitation program are promising and it can be used as an ankle training method like as peroneal nerve stimulators, FES and AFO to improve walking ability, motor recovery, spasticity, ambulation capacity,

Conflicts of interest

Financial disclosure statements were filed and no conflict of interest was reported by the authors or any individuals responsible for the content of this article. None of the authors have financial or commercial interests in connection with this study.

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