Investigating the effect of kinesiotaping on hand functions in children with cerebral palsy

İntroduction: The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of kinesiotaping on hand functions in children with cerebral palsy. Material and Methods: : 34 Children with cerebral palsy aged between 6-18 applied to Dokuz Eylül Üniversity Medical School Hospital Physical Medicine ve Rehabilitation Department included the study. The upper extremity side has been chosen as the affected side for the hemiplegic CP's and for diplegic CP's the side of upper extremity which children have been used to but have obstacles in daily life. The chosen upper extremity side taped with the functional correction technique. In a way that every patient has to be the control of themselves, 1 week before kinesiotaping, immediately after kinesiotaping and 1 week after the period of kinesiotaping CP children evaluated with box and block test, nine hole peg test, modified house clasification score and the active/passive wrist dorsiflexion range of motion. Results:17 male, 17 female children included in the study. %70,6 patients had hemiplegic CP and mean age was 8,2 years. In the statistical analysis, the t-test and repeated measures ANOVA were applied to the normal distribution and other parameters were evaluated with the Wilcoxon and Friedman test as they did not comply with the normal distribution. Immediately after taping and at the end of taping, statistical significant improvements were observed in performance / hand skills tests, which consisted of all primary and secondary endpoints except for passive wrist extension (no statistically significant difference). By means of taping, modified house score and wooden box and block test score increased compared to baseline, it was observed that nine-hole peg insertion / subtraction test was completed in a shorter time, and there was statistically significant difference between active wrist extension angles compared to baseline. Conclusion: İn cerebral palsy rehabilitation, kinesiotaping can be used to the affected upper extremity with a functional correction technic by means of hand-wrist and thumb positioning, proprioceptive feedback, such as grip retention activities by providing positive contribution to early and short-term follow-up of hand skills tests and exposes statistically significant results in parameters like modified house score and active wrist extension range of motion. This study showed that upper extremity kinesiotaping in CP can be a promising approach in cerebral palsy rehabilitation.