gms | German Medical Science

Objectives: The most common etiological factor for shoulder pain is subacromial impingement syndrome (SIS). First line treatment of SIS is resting, medication and strengthening exercises. In recent years kinesiological taping has also been counted between conservative treatment modalities. Taping is effective in pain management and musculoskeletal imbalance when applied according to insertion - origin muscle correction technique. But there is no any research about its effectiveness compared to physiotherapist supervised exercise and subacromial corticosteroid injection.

Methods: 76 patients with a diagnosis of shoulder impingement syndrome have been included in the study which have a duration of pain more than 2 weeks without any acute trauma. Patients are randomly divided into 3 groups which are kinesiotaping (Group 1; n=26), exercise (Group 2; n=25) and injection (Group 3; n=25) applied groups. Humeral head is centralized on the glenoid and also scapula is stabilized against thorax by mechanical correction technique of kinesiotaping to achieve regulation of scapulohumeral rhythm. In the exercise group, a physiotherapist supervised individualized program conducted for each patient, whereas to the patients in all the other groups only advising and exercise leaflet have been given. Betamethasone dipropionate and betamethasone sodium phosphate (Diprospan® 6,43mg ampul) has been applied subacromially to the third group. All patients have been evaluated before the beginning of the study, and at the 15th and 60th days by means of Western Ontario Rotator Cuff Scores (WORC), Quick disability of arm and shoulder scale (QDASH) and Constant-Murley scores (C-M). In each group, changes in time analyzed by means of variant analyses and analyses between groups are made by using one way ANOVA test.

Results and Conclusion: Mean values of all groups for each functional scale have been assessed and all groups have had an improvement at the 15th and 60th days. Kinesiotaping group has had a significantly lower values than other groups (p=0,005) at the 15th and 60th days. At the 15th day, injection group had also better results than exercise group with a p value lower than 0.05 in all scales. Only C-M score changes between 15th and 60th days were similar in kinesiotaping and injection groups.

Kinesiotaping is a novel modality for conservative treatment of SIS when applied properly. Not only elevating the skin tissue and improving blood and lymphatic circulation around shoulder girdle but also rebalancing of scapulohumeral rhythm with origin-insertio muscular correction seems a superior advantage of kinesiotaping among other noninvasive conservative treatment modalities.