Kinetic effects of knee joint taping on the Patellar Tendon

Abstract

Knee joint injuries frequently occur in individuals performing sport activities. Knee taping is found to reduce the burden on knee ligaments, particularly the patellar tendon. However, methods for quantitative verification of the kinetic effects of taping on the patellar tendon are limited. In this study, a measurement method using ultrasound imaging was developed to quantify the effects of knee taping on the patellar tendon, and the effects were verified in healthy subjects. The experiment was conducted under five conditions: no taping on the knee joint and taping by four different methods. To verify the differences in taping effect on the patellar tendon under five experimental conditions, we calculated the stress-strain curve from the cross-sectional area and elongation of the patellar tendon acquired using ultrasound imaging. Twelve healthy men (aged 22.6± 1.1 years) participated in the experiment. Each subject was asked to sit on a chair with the knee joint flexed at 90°, extend the knee joint, and maintain the extension force for 3 s. During the last isometric contraction, the extension force was changed from 40, 80, 120, 160 N to the maximum voluntary extension force of each subject. We succeeded to measure the elastic modulus of the patellar tendon under knee taping condition. The stress-strain curve under no taping condition was significantly different from all four taping conditions (p ＜ 0.05).