Whilst we are familiar with many kinesiology tape studies typically focussed on knees, low backs and shoulders, there was a recent study published on quite a niche injury: turf toe. Turf toe occurs when the big toe is forced into excessive dorsiflexion which can occur as people are trying to push off forcefully in sprinting or may occur as a contact injury when being tackled in some ball sports. This study looked at grade 2 injuries of turf toe which represents a partial tearing of the plantar tissues.
The study had 60 participants divided into three groups. The first group had kinesiology tape applied at 50% tension (KT-50), the second group had kinesiology tape applied with no tension (KT-0), and the third group had no tape at all. All the groups completed a 12-week rehabilitation program, attending three times a week for approximately one hour per session.
The three outcome measures that were studied were pain via a VAS scale, gait parameters via a 3D motion capture system, and the six minute walk test (6MWT).
Over the course of the rehabilitation period, all the groups improved in all parameters, as would be expected with rehabilitation gains and the natural history of the condition. However, the KT-50 group had a greater reduction in pain and improvement in their gait parameters to a statistically significant difference compared with the KT-0 and no tape groups. By having a greater reduction in pain, this probably contributed to the significant increase in step length, stride length, cadence and velocity of the KT-50 group, as well as an increase in the distance covered in the 6MWT.
The study shows that conventional rehabilitation is effective in the management of turf toe. However, the addition of kinesiology tape with tension provided greater improvement than no tape or a no-tension “placebo” tape application. This study was only relatively small in sample size and had a very narrow age band of 25 to 30 years old for its participants, and therefore has limited generalizability to the greater population. Nevertheless, it demonstrates that kinesiology tape can be a useful adjunct to normal rehabilitation protocols for turf toe injury. By reducing pain to a greater extent than conventional rehabilitation, the addition of kinesiology tape may allow patients to resume higher levels of activity sooner in their rehabilitation, provided that is clinically appropriate and relevant.
Azab, A.R., Elnaggar, R.K., Aly, S.M., Basalem, N., Alamri, A.M., Saleh,A.K., Ibrahim, N.F., Basha, M.A. & Abdelbasseti, W.K., (2024). From injury to rehabilitation: How kinesiology taping helps patients with first metatarsophalangeal joint sprain (turf toe) in pain reduction, gait parameters and functional ability improvement. A randomized clinical trial. Heliyon https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e29746