Efficacy of kinesio taping versus extracorporeal shock wave therapy in the short term for the calcaneal spur

The calcaneal spur is a common cause of heel pain, and there are various approaches to its treatment. Our aim in this study is to investigate the effectiveness of kinesio taping against Extracorporeal Shock Wave Therapy (ESWT) in the treatment of calcaneal spur. This study was designed as a randomized controlled, prospective and single-center clinical trial. A total of 93 patients with calcaneal spur (18 men, 75 women) were included. Patients were divided into two groups (based on gender, age, BMI, and pain duration) by stratified randomization (kinesio tape group=46, ESWT group=47 patients). 3 sessions of ESWT were applied to the heels of the patients in the 1st group with an interval of 1 week. Kinesio taping was applied to the 2nd group. It was applied once a week, for 3 weeks. Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) and Foot Function Index (FFI) scores of the patients in both groups before the treatment and 1 week after the end of the treatment were recorded. When we evaluated the pre-treatment and post-treatment parameters, we found a significant decrease in VAS, FFI-pain, FFI-disability and FFI-activity restriction scores in both groups (p=0.0001). We also found that kinesio taping was more effective than ESWT in reducing FFI-pain (for after treatment FFI-pain inter group p=0.005, for FFI-pain difference inter group p=0.002) and FFI-disability (for after treatment FFI-disability inter group p=0.023, for FFI-disability difference inter group p=0.0001) scores. To conclude, although both kinesio taping and ESWT treatments reduced patients' pain, disability and activity limitation, kinesio taping was found to be more effective in reducing pain and disability. Studies with longer follow-up are needed to clarify our results.