Taping reduces pain and disability in patients with knee osteoarthritis

to prevent irritation of the skin. The control tape was hypoallergenic tape alone, laid over the same areas of skin as the therapeutic tape. The tapes were worn for three weeks and reapplied weekly. Participants allocated to the no tape group received no intervention. Outcomes Primary outcomes were pain on movement and pain on worst activity measured on a 0‐10 cm scale, and participant perceived rating of change. Secondary outcomes included the pain subscale of the WOMAC osteoarthritis index, the knee pain scale, and the bodily pain domain of the SF-36. All outcomes were assessed at three and six weeks. Main results The therapeutic tape group reported greater pain reduction than the other two groups, e.g. at six weeks the mean difference (95% CI) for therapeutic tape versus no tape was 2.4 (1.1 to 3.7) for pain on worst activity. Intervention was significantly associated (p = 0.000) with change in pain at three weeks: 73% (21/29) of the therapeutic tape group reported improvement compared with 49% (14/29) of the control tape group, and 10% (3/29) of the no tape group. Significantly greater improvement was observed on most secondary outcomes in the therapeutic tape group compared with the no tape group. Conclusion Therapeutic knee taping is an effective treatment option for the management of pain and disability in patients with knee osteoarthritis. Hinman and colleagues did a study by the book; their RCT followed all recommendations of the CONSORT statement. So it can be concluded that taping for three weeks is effective in the short term in patients with osteoarthritis. Despite this positive result one critical remark should be made. Hinman and colleagues found immediately after the intervention a significantly greater reduction in pain in the therapeutic tape group than in the control tape group. Differences between the therapeutic and the control tape group were small for secondary outcome measures, such as physical functioning, but not statistically significant. At three weeks follow up both tape groups showed significant improvements from baseline compared with the no tape group. These findings suggest that part of the positive effect of taping can be explained by a placebo effect. The findings of the study raise new research questions. The study included volunteers from the community who responded to advertisements. Apart from the classification criteria for osteoarthritis the main inclusion criterion was knee pain. The authors do not provide an explanation for the relief of pain as a result of taping. It might be interesting to know whether taping is more effective in specific subgroups of patients, for instance in patients with malalignment or patients with severe loss of cartilage. It is likely that unloading by taping is particularly effective in those patients.