Strapping
Strapping is a common technique that Physiotherapists use to aid in someone’s rehabilitation. Strapping can be used for many different complaints and it use can vary from restricting certain movements while allowing other movements, muscle facilitation, muscle inhibition, support and proprioceptive feed back.
There are many different tape products out there but the 2 major ones are premium sports rigid tape and Kinesio Tape (Kinesio Tape is the original brand, many other brands have brought out similar products such as K-tape, Rocktape, etc).
Your Physiotherapist will deciding if taping is something that benefit you as part of your rehabilitation.
Rigid Strapping tape
Is commonly used to restrict certain movements to assist in protecting an injured part of the body or a weak/vulnerable body part. It is commonly used but not limited to the following uses in sport:
- Ankles following a ligament sprain - Here is a video of an ankle strapping with instructions (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XT_Orge_uQ)
- The knee following ligament sprain and to assist with patella tracking
- The shoulder to protect the AC joint or the glenohumeral joint following previous dislocation.
It is important to note that some people are allergic to the glues in the tape and a rash or blistering can occur, if this is the case a hypoallergenic under tape could be tried or bracing may be an option.
Kinesio Tape
Kinesio tape is a stretching tape that was developed over 25 years ago in Japan, although has not been a mainstay in physiotherapy practices until recent years. The tape is unique in the way that it is able to act on many body systems. These include:
- Muscle - Kinesio tape can assist muscle contraction or inhibit it
- Circulation - Can aid in lymphatic drainage and have a positive effect of swelling management
- Joint - Can aid in joint proprioception by stimulating the receptors around a joint (the bodies ability to know where the joint is in space)
- fascia - Can aid in how fascia functions in dynamic movement, rest, acute and chronic injuries (the connective tissue that encompasses the body)
Reference
http://www.kinesiotaping.com.au