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Effects of multidirectional elastic tape on pain and function in individuals with lateral elbow tendinopathy: A
Caitlin E Hill1, Luke J Heales1, Robert Stanton1,2
1School of Health, Medical and Applied Sciences, Central Queensland University, Rockhampton, QLD, Australia.
Objective:
To investigate the effects of multidirectional elastic tape on pain and function in individuals with lateral elbow tendinopathy.
Study Design:
Randomised crossover trial.
Setting:
Biomechanics laboratory.
Subjects:
27 participants (11 females, mean (SD) age: 48.6 (11.9) years) with clinically diagnosed lateral elbow tendinopathy of at least six weeks' duration.
Interventions:
Tensioned multidirectional elastic tape applied over the wrist, compared to control tape (untensioned), and no tape conditions.
Main Measures:
Pain-free grip strength and pressure pain threshold were recorded at three timepoints for each condition: baseline, post-application, and following an exercise circuit. Change scores were calculated as the post-application or post-exercise value minus baseline. Repeated-measure analyses of variance were used to examine differences between conditions.
Results:
There were no statistically significant differences in pain-free grip strength between conditions (flexed position: F2,52 = 0.02, p = 0.98; extended position: F2,52 = 2.26, p = 0.12) or across timepoints (post-application vs post-exercise) (flexed position: F1,26 = 0.94, p = 0.34; extended position: F1,26 = 0.79, p = 0.38). Seven participants (26%) increased pain-free grip strength above the minimal detectable change following application of multidirectional elastic tape. There were no statistically significant differences in pressure pain threshold between conditions (affected lateral epicondyle: F1.51,39.17 = 0.54, p = 0.54) or across timepoints (affected lateral epicondyle: F1,26 = 0.94, p = 0.34).
Conclusion:
Tensioned multidirectional elastic tape may not immediately improve pain-free grip strength or pressure pain threshold in our lateral elbow tendinopathy population; however, individual variation may exist.
