Effectiveness of Wrist and Forearm Kinesio Tape Technique on Improving Symptoms in Carpal Tunnel Syndrome: A Review of the Literature

One of the treatment methods for patients with carpal tunnel syndrome is kinesio tape. Since there have not been any systematic review on this issue, the present systematic review was conducted to investigate the effects of kinesio tape in patients with carpal tunnel syndrome.

Using several keywords, including Carpal tunnel syndrome, Median nerve, Kinesio tape, and Physiotherapy, a literature search was performed for the period between 2000-2018, in Google scholar, Pubmed, PEDro, Science Direct, Springer, Ovid, ProQuest, Cochrane library, and Scopus databases.

Among the articles found, only those using kinesio tape for the treatment of carpal tunnel syndrome were included in the study. Out of 50 articles, only 11 were included in the study and other studies were excluded.

All the papers studied showed pain relief, increased grip and pinch strength, decreased median nerve cross sectional area, reduced distal latency, increased median nerve speed, and improvement in the questionnaires. Studies that used kinesio tape along with other physiotherapy treatments indicated an increased effect on the recovery of patients with carpal tunnel syndrome, especially in the long term.