Effect of Kinesio Taping over Frontal Region on the Attention of Normal Subjects

Abstract

" Kinesio taping " is a newly developed technique frequently used for the treatment of soft tissue le-sions. The Kinesio Tex tape has the skin like elastic property and can be applied with tension at the soft tissue lesion site. This study was designed to assess the effectiveness of " Kinesio taping " on the atten-tion in normal subjects. In several ways that can be used to assess attention, the well-known Posner paradigm was chosen. This paradigm can assess visual spatial attention by presenting the target par-ticipants with cues that direct attention to regions of the visual space within which an imperative stimulus may subsequently appear. The cue can be valid or invalid. After cuing, subjects press the left or right of computer mouse for response to the target participants appearing. Twenty one healthy volunteers (17 males and 4 females) with aged from 21 to 27 years were re-cruited for this study. All subjects received Posner's attention test with and without taping. The accuracy and the reaction time were analyzed. It was found that under the valid-cue condition, the reaction time was significantly delayed after " Kinesio taping " (p<0.05). It was concluded that the tactile effects of " Kinesio taping " might delay the reaction time under valid-cue condition. (Tw J Phys Med Rehabil 2006; 34(4): 215 -223)