STUDY DESIGN: Pilot study. OBJECTIVES: To examine the short-term effects of Kinesio Tape (KT), when applied to the cervical spine; on pain, disability, rating of change, and cervical range of motion compared to thoracic spine manipulation (TSM) in individuals with mechanical neck pain (MNP). BACKGROUND: Recent studies support TSM as an effective intervention for patients with a primary complaint of MNP. Kinesio Tape is an increasingly popular intervention for clinicians treating patients with MNP. However, no studies have investigated the immediate effects of TSM compared to KT in subjects with MNP. METHODS: Eleven participants presenting with a primary complaint of neck pain who met inclusion criteria were randomly assigned to one of three treatment groups: TSM and exercise (TSM-EX), KT and exercise (KT-EX), or a strictly exercise (EX) control group. All participants received their intervention twice across 2 consecutive weeks with a follow-up appointment on the third week. Outcome measures collected at 1 week, 2 weeks, and 3 weeks included: numeric pain rating scale (NPRS), the Neck Disability Index (NDI), and the Global Rating of Change (GRC). RESULTS: KT-EX and TSM-EX groups showed a trend of decreased NDI and NPRS scores each week. The EX group showed a decrease in NDI and NPRS scores between baseline and week 1. All groups showed improvement in symptoms on the GRC all weeks except week 2 for the EX group. CONCLUSION: This is pilot study demonstrates the need to further investigate the effects of KT compared to TSM in patients with MNP. Currently, we are unable to report significant differences between treatment groups due to the low power of this study. However, KT-EX and TSM-EX groups demonstrated superior results in all outcome measures compared to the EX group.

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