Papers of the Week

NSAID in knee OA impose many related adverse effects. Kinesio taping was recently suggested as a novel conservative treatment for reducing pain in OA, without adverse effects. This study aimed to compare kinesio taping and NSAID therapy for kn.ee OA. There were 37 participants in the first group (mean age, 53.72 ± 8.91 years), 29 participants in the second group (mean age, 50.24 ± 8.63 years), and 18 participants in the third group (mean age, 53.33 ± 8.50 years). These groups were treated with NSAID therapy and kinesio taping, kinesio taping only, and sham taping with NSAID therapy, respectively. Taping was repeated three times a week at 1-day intervals. Participants reported pain each week, using visual analog scale scores. The main effect of group and the pain-group interaction were not statistically significant (P = 0.88 and 0.15, respectively). Pain reduction in different weeks was statistically significant (P < .001). Cohen's effect size values for pain reduction in the first to third groups were 0.70, 0.55, and 0.48, respectively. Pain reduction was observed in the three groups, but there was no significant difference among the various treatments. Kinesio taping as a pain relief method may reduce pharmacotherapy demands or at least delay NSAID prescriptions in patients with early OA.