Effects of patellar taping on knee joint proprioception in patients with patellofemoral pain syndrome

The aim of this study was to assess the effect of patellar taping of the proprioceptive status of patients with patellofemoral pain syndrome (PFPS). A total of 32 subjects (18 males, 14 females of age 31.9±11.2, body mass index 25.8±5.3) with PFPS were tested for Joint Position Sense (JPS) using a Biodex dynamometer. Outcomes of interest were the absolute error (AE), the variable error (VE) and the relative error (RE) of the JPS values for both active (AAR) and passive (PAR) angle reproduction at an angular velocity of 2°/s with a start angle at 90° and target angles of 60° and 20°. Taping was applied in random order across the patella of each subject with each of the subjects acting as their own internal control.Results indicated initially that application of patellar tape did not enhance and in some cases worsened the JPS of the subjects (P>0.05). However, when the subjects’ proprioceptive status was graded according to their closeness to the target angles into ‘good’ (⩽5°, N=10) and ‘poor’ (>5°, N=22) taping enhanced nearly all values of those with ‘poor’ proprioception, with AE at 20° to statistical significance (P=0.021).In conclusion, this study has shown that patellar taping did not improve the AAR and PAR JPS tests of a whole sample of 32 PFPS patients. It also has shown that a subgroup of PFPS patients with poor proprioception may exist and be helped by patellar taping.