Effectiveness of Kinesiotaping and Conventional Physiotherapy on Patients With Non-Specific Chronic Low Back Pain

Purpose: Low Back Pain (LBP) is among the most common reasons of medical visits worldwide. It can cause limited movements, long lasting disability, and low quality of life and work. Thus, studying the efficacy of conservative treatment strategies to help patients with LBP is very important. The present study aimed to evaluate the effect of kinesiotaping in addition to conventional physiotherapy on pain and disability in patients with non-specific chronic LBP. Methods: Of the non-specific chronic LBP patients who referred to a private physiotherapy clinic in Karaj City, Iran, patients with the age range of 20-55 years were included in this study, using simple random sampling method. Before the onset of intervention, patients on the waiting list for treatment for 2 weeks were considered as the controls. The intervention program performed in 10 sessions (2 weeks), comprising physiotherapy (ultrasound, hot pack, electrical stimulation and stability exercise) in addition to kinesiotaping which was applied on every session. Pain severity (using Visual Analog Scale) and disability (using Oswestry) were evaluated before, during and after the intervention. The repeated measures ANOVA was used for statistical analysis.  Results: Overall, 15 patients with the Mean±SD age of 39±8.9 years and the body mass index of 26.92±5.46 kg/m2, participated in the study. During the time that we considered as the period of control, assessments were performed and the results regarding pain and disability showed no significant changes (P>0.05). Changes in the mean score of pain severity were significant (P>0.001); it altered from 7.33 before the intervention to 1.80 after the intervention. Disability based on the Oswestry scale changes were also significant (P>0.03); it changed from 50% before the intervention to 11% after that.  Conclusion: Combined kinesiotaping and conventional physiotherapy can decline pain and disability in patients with LBP.