X-twitter Facebook-f Pinterest-p
X-twitter Facebook-f Pinterest-p

Does KT Tape Actually Work? New Research Raises Questions



Fact checked by Nick Blackmer

KT tape is suppose to help with pain and mobility issues from muscle or joint injuries.Credit: BartekSzewczyk / Getty Images
KT tape is suppose to help with pain and mobility issues from muscle or joint injuries.
Credit: BartekSzewczyk / Getty Images
  • A new study suggests that KT tape may not be effective for long-term pain relief or injury recovery.
  • It may offer small, short-term benefits, like slight pain relief and improved movement right after application.
  • Experts say it can still be useful as part of a broader recovery plan, but shouldn’t replace injury treatment.

If you’ve ever played or watched sports, you’ve probably seen kinesiology therapeutic tape, often referred to as KT tape. The colorful, stretchy athletic tape is a popular remedy for muscle and joint pain, especially for areas like your shoulders, back, knees, and ankles. However, new research published in BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine has called its effectiveness into question.

How is KT Tape Supposed to Work?

KT tape is used to support muscles and joints while still allowing full movement, according to Shayan Ghadamabadi, DPT, a physical therapist with MSU Health Care. “It works by gently lifting the skin, which helps reduce pressure, improve blood and lymphatic flow, and decrease swelling and bruising,” he told Health. “The tape also provides sensory feedback that can reduce pain and improve muscle activation and body awareness during movement.”

It’s popular among professional and recreational athletes alike, because “it’s a low-cost, low-risk option for treating musculoskeletal injuries,” said Shane Davis, MD, a non-operative sports medicine physician at Tufts Medical Center. While it’s been around since the ’70s, KT tape surged in popularity after the 2008 Olympics, where it received a lot of high-profile exposure from athletes, Davis added.

What the Study Found

For muscle and joint issues, there’s no strong evidence that KT tape actually works for long-term recovery or significant physical improvement, the new research found. Additionally, KT tape can cause skin irritation and itching where the adhesive touches the skin.

There is a silver lining, however. The tape may provide a small reduction in pain and a slight improvement in movement right after it's applied, and potentially for the next few days.

The researchers looked at 128 systematic reviews of randomized controlled trials (the gold standard in research) on the clinical effects of KT tape, including a total of 15,812 participants.

The main limitation of the new study is that the researchers used mathematical formulas to determine what counts as a “meaningful improvement” for patients, but these formulas don’t always match how people actually feel.

Additionally, the researchers looked at all the randomized controlled trials together, regardless of which body parts were taped or which taping technique was used, noted Brad R. Erler, PT, DPT, MS, ATC, a physical therapist at the Hospital for Special Surgery.

“I’d be interested to see if the results change if [the researchers] look at those groups individually or if they compare specific taping techniques,” he told Health. “But because they are looking at all body parts and all taping techniques as one large group, I think the results can get a little less defined and meld together.”

Why KT Tape Might Not Be Very Effective

This isn’t the first study to find the effectiveness of KT tape inconclusive. A 2012 systematic review, which examined 727 articles, reached a similar conclusion: insufficient evidence to support the use of KT tape, with a potential perceived benefit among patients.

So why might KT tape actually be less effective than people think? Even though it can provide helpful short-term effects like pain relief and support, it often doesn’t address the underlying cause of an injury, Ghadamabadi said. “Relying on it alone for a persistent issue can make it more of a temporary ‘band-aid’ rather than a true solution,” he said. 

What’s more, if you’re applying KT tape yourself without the help of a trained professional, there’s a chance you'll do it incorrectly, which can have a negative impact, or no effect at all, according to Martha Munsell, AT, ATC, an athletic trainer with the MSU Health Care Sports Medicine Community Athletic Training Program.

Should You Stop Using KT Tape?

Despite the study’s findings, experts still think there can be a use for KT tape, such as helping with swelling or low-grade muscle and tendon injuries.

“When combined with appropriate exercise and rehabilitation, KT tape can be beneficial by allowing individuals to move more comfortably and stay active during recovery,” Ghadamabadi said.

Aside from physical recovery, there’s also a potential mental benefit, Erler said. “As we saw in this study, it may only help in the short term, but maybe a person needs just a little help to get them over a hump or to get through their exercises. Maybe we can take advantage of that placebo effect,” he said. “If we tape someone and they feel better, perhaps they can be more confident in using their arm or leg when they’re playing in a game or doing their activity.”

KT tape won’t stabilize more severe injuries, like a dislocated shoulder or a newly sprained ankle, Erler said. In those cases, more rigid tape or a brace would be more beneficial—and always consult a healthcare provider to treat an injury. But Erler said he doesn’t see KT tape going anywhere. 



Source link

Leave a Reply

Subscribe to Our Newsletter

Get our latest articles delivered straight to your inbox. No spam, we promise.

Kyrsten Sinema’s Alleged Private Texts To Married BF Revealed in Court

BRB Risk Jobs Board — Senior Conflicts Analyst (Hinckley Allen)

Ethics and Conflicts — “DePlorable” Lawyer Band Conflict Alleged, Judicial Campaign Contribution Conflicts Ethics Opinion, Investigating Judicial Financial Stakes

AI, ABA and Conflicts News — AI Use and Work Privilege Protections, Insurer v Defense Counsel Conflicts Concerns

Google Data Studio vs Power BI

BRB Risk Jobs Board — Senior Conflicts Analyst (Hinckley Allen)

Ethics and Conflicts — “DePlorable” Lawyer Band Conflict Alleged, Judicial Campaign Contribution Conflicts Ethics Opinion, Investigating Judicial Financial Stakes

AI, ABA and Conflicts News — AI Use and Work Privilege Protections, Insurer v Defense Counsel Conflicts Concerns

Who is eligible for the Chase Sapphire Preferred’s bonus?

BRB Risk Jobs Board — Senior Conflicts Analyst (Hinckley Allen)

Ethics and Conflicts — “DePlorable” Lawyer Band Conflict Alleged, Judicial Campaign Contribution Conflicts Ethics Opinion, Investigating Judicial Financial Stakes

AI, ABA and Conflicts News — AI Use and Work Privilege Protections, Insurer v Defense Counsel Conflicts Concerns

Recent Reviews

Google Data Studio vs Power BI


What is Power BI?

Power BI is one of the popular business intelligence tools developed by Microsoft Corporation to offer various data modeling capabilities like data preparations, data visualizations, data discovery, and generating interactive data analytic dashboards. With the help of Power BI users can make powerful business-related decisions. This Power BI tool helps users to pull the data using various formats such as images, excel sheets, spreadsheets, and videos. The Power BI tool also helps to centralize the database management system, and you can also visualize the data model on it.

Become a Power BI Certified professional by learning this HKR Power BI Training !

What is Google data studio?

Google data studio is an easy-to-use tool that is used to create a beautiful data visualization within a minute. This is a cloud-based application that can be run on the various top web browsers like chrome, safari, and firefox. This type of tool is able to deliver stunning, and insightful reports without much action from the user. Google data studio also comes up with a free-to-use license for personal or commercial use. With the help of Google data studio dashboard, you can access various types of charts such as charts, bars, pie, lines, Areas, scatter, etc, and this also adds up value to the data reports.

Comparison of Power BI and Google data studio:

Here we are going to explain the major comparison between power BI and Google data studio based on a few functionalities. Let’s start it;

Installation:

Power BI tool has a number of ways to install or configure it, and it all depends on the license. The basic, and very best way to install Power BI as a desktop application on your desktop. Power BI application is quick and straightforward so all you need is just a modern PC with 4GB of RAM (ideally 8GB of RAM) and running windows 8 operating system version or later. Power BI is a Microsoft product, and it is not available for MAC operating systems. 

Google data studio is completely web-based, so you do not need to install it on your computer/pc. Directly you can access them by logging into the Google page like other Google products. 

Data source:

Power BI consists of various pre-built connectors, and they enable you to connect to a wide variety and ever-expanding data sources. PowerBI’s web connectors help you to import data from almost any data source that includes Amazon, Google, and other Microsoft competitors.

Whereas Google data Studio data connectors are much smaller and offer only 18 connectors that are built by Google. inc itself. There are also 400+ connectors built by Data studio partners. These types of connectors you get to see only for advertising, media, and content-related websites.

Data transformation:

Power BI offers a full range of data transformations by using a power Query engine. Power Query lets you perform ETL (Extract, transfer, and loading) operations on the data which you have and prepare it for visualization. Users can also make use of data analysis expression (DAX) to build formulas and expressions. Power BI has a lot of capabilities to perform data transmission operations. 

Whereas Google data studio lags behind this feature. In Google data studio, the only way to perform data transformation is by using JOIN keys. So by default google assumes that you already have clean data for the visualization.

Ease of use:

If you are familiar with MS Excel, then Power BI would be a great choice.  But to access power BI, some sort of struggle is required to connect and integrate with different data sources. Power BI has also offered better functionalities than the Google data studio and also helps you with a drag-and-drop feature. 

Whereas Google data studio is very easy to navigate and the learning curve is minimal. The user interface of this platform is extremely intuitive as long as you have clean datasets. Only one thing you need to concentrate on is a drag-and-drop feature that helps you to create quick reports.

Sharing:

In Power BI report sharing is a complex task that is compared to the Google data studio. The biggest concern is that it is impossible to share a report directly from the desktop applications. Every time you need to publish the reports in the Power BI services. However mobile applications let you share a dashboard or report directly from the application.

In power BI you can share your reports and dashboards with internal and external collaborators. 

On the other hand, sharing data with google data studio is an easier task. With the help of email or links, you can share the reports in the Google data studio. In google, the recipients dont need to pay any subscription fees because Google offers a free google data studio tool.

Mobile compatibility:

Power BI consists of the native applications for Android, Windows, and IOS smartphones. In Power BI smart mobile application, you can perform the below vital tasks:

  • Visualizing data reports
  • Filtering of the data from a report.
  • Adding notes to the reports.
  • Getting a notification and setting alerts.
  • Exploring on-premise data reports.

Whereas Google data studio does not have a mobile application version so that users can visualize the data reports using the mobile browser, editing the report could be a challenging task. 

Community and online resources:

We already know that Microsoft Power BI has a huge knowledge base community to learn and resolve the issues about the platform usage. When you login into the communities, you will get to see a lot of content which are related to the platform guide. For example, themes gallery, custom visual studios, data stories gallery, developer, etc.

Similarly, Google data studio also has robust communities. Here the community gallery section of this tool gives you access to various third-party visualization widgets. 

Cost:

Power BI desktop is free but can be accessed only by beginners who want to know the basic things about the tool. For the business purpose, you need to share a desktop, and the cost it will going to charge is $9.99 per user/per month (premium subscription). Power BI Pro is a cloud-based application that can be used for collaboration, sharing, publishing, etc. If you are an expert, and you want power BI for both the on-premise and cloud-based reporting, support for big data and analytics, dedicated cloud computes, and storage resources you can opt for Power BI premium at $4995/year. 

Whereas the Google data studio is free to use application. And all you need is just a Google account.

Functionalities:

Power BI tool is available for both beginners and advanced level experts due to its tons of data manipulation features. It also helps you to access data through the data visualization elements like charts, bars, tables, graphs, etc. one more functionality of the Power BI is, the tool gets refreshed itself  8 times a day.

Whereas Google data studio comes up with fewer features when compared to the Google data studio as it is only a data visualization application. However, its in-memory BI engine is a powerful feature that helps users to eliminate the data visualization lags, especially used for the larger number of data sets. The Google data studio application gets refreshed itself every 12 hours.

Want to know more about Power BI,visit here Power BI Tutorial !

Power BI Training

  • Master Your Craft
  • Lifetime LMS & Faculty Access
  • 24/7 online expert support
  • Real-world & Project Based Learning

Pros and Cons of the Power BI:

First, let’s start with the Power BI:

Advantages of the Power BI:

Below are the primary advantages of the Power BI:

Offers easy data exploration and data visualization:
This is the world of data exploding, this tool offers the ability to explore valuable data and also perform data visualization tasks to get greater results. When compared with other business intelligence tools, I think this is an awesome tool in the data visualization process.

Acts as a managed self-service Business intelligence tool:
This Microsoft business intelligence tool provides an effective self-service business intelligence tool. The MSBI also acts as a Microsoft Excel that is used by everyone in their day-to-day activities to produce and report the data analytics.

This tool makes use of Native MS excel features:
The MSBI tool makes use of Microsoft Excel features to the core in order to produce effective data analysis. By using excel Microsoft excel features it’s very easy to collect data from multiple data sources.

MSBI tool supports Web service applications:
MSBI tool works well with programming languages like .NET and SQL database servers to build an effective web service application and also offers abundant benefits to the clients.

End-to-end Business solutions:
MSBI provides you with a great business solution for your organization and enables users to make effective business decisions. This tool offers entire top-to-bottom business solutions.

Data warehouse applications:
Business intelligence tools offer greater data analytical solutions. You can collect the data warehouse from various sources. This type of warehousing is more suitable to extract the information to carry out the data analytical task effectively.

Limitations of the Microsoft Power BI:

Below are the few drawbacks of the Microsoft Power BI:

  • This tool is very difficult to implement. You need to loop them in the development team, the IT team to get it executed.
  • To implement row-level security in Power BI and tie your web application users with Power BI users.
  • With users coming and leaving an organization, it becomes a nightmare to manage.
  • Requires considerable investment.
  • You need to buy a premium capacity.
  • Not feasible for pro users.
  • Still users need to visit your web page and the information is not delivered to them.

Top 50 frequently asked Power BI Interview Questions !

HKR Trainings Logo

Subscribe to our YouTube channel to get new updates..!

Advantages of the Google data studio:

Below are the few benefits of the Google data studio;

It’s a free tool to use:
If you have a Google account, then it’s free to access the tool.

Offers customized report dashboard:
 Google data studio tool allows users to customize the report dashboards with a wide range of text formatting options available such as designs, Styles, graphs, and text headers. If you have new raw data, that will be customized on the dashboard based on your requirement with the help of this pre-built text formatting feature.

Here are some of the things you can format the data:

  • Page layout
  • Text formats 
  • Graphs 
  • Metrics
  • Style element

Offers modern and interactive data visualization:

In Google data studio with the help of a few clicks, you can easily create an engaging and visually appealing dashboard that will attract your audience for sure.

Automated report sharing dashboards:
Google data studio allows you to build an automated report sharing dashboard with the help of real-time data, this process saves your time while reporting.

Offers shareable dashboards:
Google data studio offers a sharing dashboard with the users for multiple tasks. This feature also helps you to communicate among peers and business partners.

You can share the report with the help of these things:

  • Link sharing 
  • Email permissions.
  • Schedules email deliveries.

Limitations of the Google data studio:

Here are the few drawbacks of the Google data studio:

  • Lack of real-time updates with respect to the dashboard.
  • Slow speed in case of live connections.
  • There is no on-premise deployment option available.
  • Lack of native data connectors availability.
  • A limited number of charts per dashboard report
  • Limited interaction with the elements.

Which is the best tool between Power BI and Google data studio?

Here we come to the conclusion part of the article, you can make use of Google data studio sources such as Google data analytics with the data that is readily usable, no need for sharing any complex information. Google data studio tool is a good fit for quick reporting. Most importantly it is a free tool to use unless you need some data connectors.

On the other hand, we have Power BI, this tool is used if you have a wide variety of data transformation options, all you need is a BI tool that has advanced features like greater data transformation capabilities, customization options, and if you don’t mind in paying. Power BI is a powerful robust data visualization and analytical tool, it requires some sort of excel knowledge to perform Power BI dashboards.

You can choose the tool as per your requirements, and data connectivity sources.

Power BI Training

Weekday / Weekend Batches

Final thought:

We tried to clear all our audiences’ doubts regarding choosing the best tool between Google data studio and power BI. Both the tools are scalable and robust to use and configure. In this Power BI VS google data studio post, we have mentioned major differences based on the different categories, pros, and cons of the tools.

Related Articles:



Source link

BRB Risk Jobs Board — Intapp Applications Administrator (Moore & Van Allen)

BRB Risk Jobs Board — Senior Conflicts Analyst (Hinckley Allen)

Ethics and Conflicts — “DePlorable” Lawyer Band Conflict Alleged, Judicial Campaign Contribution Conflicts Ethics Opinion, Investigating Judicial Financial Stakes

Copyright © 2024 All Rights Reserved.