You’ve probably seen it. Bright strips of colorful tape on a runner’s knee, an athlete’s shoulder, maybe even a coworker’s low back. Kinesio tape has been part of the sports medicine world for decades now.
What you may not have considered is a roll of it with the rest of your dysphagia supplies.
Kinesio taping has quietly made its way into dysphagia and orofacial therapy, with a growing body of research behind it. It’s not as a replacement for skilled swallowing therapy, but as a modality that can support jaw stability, improve lip closure, and even help manage lymphedema in our head and neck cancer patients. Let’s take a look at where this tool came from, what it actually does, and where the evidence stands.
A Quick History of Kinesio Tape
Kinesio tape was developed in the early 1970s by Dr. Kenzo Kase, a Japanese American chiropractor. He was treating arthritis patients and getting good results by manually positioning joints, but the relief didn’t last once patients left the clinic and went back to their old movement patterns.
He wanted something that could extend the benefit of manual treatment between sessions, essentially sending his hands home with the patient. The rigid athletic tape available at the time didn’t work. It restricted movement and irritated the skin. So Kase spent years developing an elastic, cotton based tape that could stretch and recoil similarly to human skin, support muscles and joints without limiting range of motion, and stay on through showering and daily activity.
The tape made its way into sports circles in Japan before catching wider attention. From there, its use expanded well beyond athletics into orthopedic, neurological, and oncology rehabilitation, and eventually into our world of speech and swallowing.
What Kinesio Tape Is Actually Meant to Do
The core idea behind kinesio taping is different from traditional athletic strapping. Instead of immobilizing a joint or muscle, kinesio tape is applied with varying amounts of tension to either facilitate or inhibit muscle activity, support proper alignment and movement patterns, lift the skin slightly to improve local circulation and lymphatic flow, and provide sensory input that influences motor output.
That slight lift of the skin is a big part of the mechanism. It’s thought to reduce pressure on the lymphatic and blood vessels just beneath the surface, which is part of why taping has been studied for edema and lymphedema management, not just musculoskeletal support.
How This Applies to Speech and Dysphagia Therapy
Once clinicians realized kinesio tape could facilitate or support specific muscle groups, it was only a matter of time before someone applied that thinking to the muscles we care about most. The muscles related to swallowing .
A 2026 systematic review looked at 14 studies on kinesiology taping across dysphagia populations, including post stroke patients, healthy adults, premature infants, and children. Across these studies, taping was applied to the orbicularis oris and masseter for the oral phase, and to the suprahyoid and infrahyoid muscles for the pharyngeal phase. Reported outcomes included improved lip closure, reduced drooling, increased laryngeal movement during the swallow, decreased aspiration, and better swallow related quality of life.
That’s a meaningful list for a technique many of us were never taught in grad school.
Taping for Jaw Support
The suprahyoid muscles do a lot of heavy lifting during the pharyngeal phase. They elevate and stabilize the hyoid and larynx, which matters for airway protection and upper esophageal sphincter opening. When these muscles are weak, whether from stroke, deconditioning, or a neurological process, the whole swallow sequence can suffer.
Several studies have applied kinesio tape directly to the suprahyoid and hyolaryngeal complex to facilitate activation during swallowing exercises. One placebo controlled trial in post stroke patients applied tape to the hyolaryngeal complex with roughly 70 percent tension, paired with repeated voluntary swallows over four weeks, and compared it to a sham taping group. Other research has used videofluoroscopy to show that taping can influence hyoid movement and epiglottic rotation during the swallow itself.
There’s also work specifically targeting jaw opening and chewing mechanics, using Y shaped tape strips positioned along the mandible to support jaw stability during early stage dysphagia rehab post stroke.
The clinical takeaway is that taping in this region appears to support and cue the muscle groups already doing the work of your therapeutic exercise program. It’s not a passive fix. It’s a facilitation tool layered onto active therapy.
Taping the Orbicularis Oris for Mouth Closure
If you’ve ever worked with a patient who struggles with anterior loss, pocketing, or drooling because their lips just aren’t sealing the way they need to, this application will make immediate sense.
The orbicularis oris is the sphincter muscle responsible for lip closure, and it plays a role in swallowing, mastication, and speech. When it’s weak, food and liquid escape, saliva management becomes a problem, and speech intelligibility can take a hit as well.
One study evaluated adding kinesio taping of the orbicularis oris to standard speech therapy in children with neurological disorders and drooling. Fifteen kids received twice weekly taping over a 30 day period, and the tape was applied in a circular pattern that respects the muscle’s natural fiber orientation around the mouth. The result was a reduced interlabial gap and improvement across nearly every drooling and oral motor measure within just 15 days.
Other trials have compared taping combined with oral motor exercise to taping alone, and to manipulation therapy, generally finding that taping paired with active treatment outperforms either approach in isolation. While much of this research has been done in pediatric populations, the underlying mechanism, that circumferential taping supports lip seal and gives the patient sensory feedback about lip position, translates well to our adult dysphagia patients dealing with facial weakness from stroke, Parkinson’s disease, or post surgical changes.
Taping for Lymphatic Drainage in Head and Neck Cancer
Kinesio taping becomes more like a genuinely useful clinical tool for a population who may sometimes have limited treatment options.
Head and neck lymphedema is a common and under addressed consequence of surgery and radiation for head and neck cancer. Damaged lymphatic channels struggle to drain properly, leading to facial and neck swelling that affects appearance, function, and often swallowing and speech.
A randomized, double blind, sham controlled trial of 66 patients with head and neck cancer related lymphedema found that kinesio taping significantly reduced external lymphedema on neck and facial measurements compared to a sham taping group, and patients in the taping group reported significantly better quality of life scores, including for swallowing specifically. Internal lymphedema didn’t show the same group difference, which is an important distinction. Taping appears more effective for external, visible swelling than for deeper internal tissue changes.
A more recent systematic review of physical therapy interventions for head and neck cancer related lymphedema echoed this, concluding that an exercise program combined with manual lymphatic drainage and kinesio taping or compression therapy can benefit external lymphedema, though internal lymphedema remains harder to treat with any of these approaches.
If you’re working with head and neck cancer survivors, this is a technique worth having a conversation with your lymphedema certified colleagues about, particularly as a complement to manual lymphatic drainage rather than a replacement for it.
Remember though, never use tape on compromised skin. You may need to wait until after chemo or radiation treatment and do not use tape over an active cancer lesion.
Contraindications and Precautions
Kinesio tape has a strong safety profile, but that doesn’t mean it’s appropriate for everyone. Before you reach for the roll, screen for the following.
Contraindications:
- Active skin infection, open wounds, or broken skin in the application area
- Cellulitis
- Active dermatitis or eczema in the treatment area
- Known allergy to the tape’s adhesive
Use caution with:
- Deep vein thrombosis or active phlebitis
- Fragile or thinning skin, common in older adults and in patients who have had radiation
- Skin still healing from recent surgery or radiation therapy
- Malignancy at the local application site
- Patients with a history of adhesive or latex sensitivity, even though most kinesio tape products are latex free
Skin reactions are uncommon, but they do happen, most often from overstretching the tape during application or from friction rather than a true allergic response. A quick patch test before full application is a reasonable habit, especially with head and neck cancer patients whose skin has often been through radiation and may be more reactive than you’d expect.
And as always, this is an adjunct. Taping supports the muscles you’re already targeting in therapy. It doesn’t replace your assessment, your exercise prescription, or your clinical judgment about whether a patient is an appropriate candidate in the first place.
Ready to Learn More?
You can join the Dysphagia Skills Accelerator, purchase the Clinical Dysphagia Toolkit Bundle or sign up for Dysphagia Unboxed, the monthly newsletter from Dysphagia Ramblings.
References
Ozcete ZA, Eyigor S, Sezgin B. The efficacy of Kinesio taping on lymphedema following head and neck cancer therapy: a randomized, double blind, sham-controlled trial. Physiotherapy Theory and Practice. 2023;39(9).
de-la-Cruz-Fernandez, L., Galiano-Castillo, N., Galvan-Banqueri, P., Castro-Martin, E., Lozano-Lozano, M., Postigo-Martin, P., & Lopez-Garzon, M. (2025). Lymphedema management in patients with head and neck cancer: a systematic review of randomized controlled trials on physical therapy interventions. Supportive Care in Cancer, 33(5), 420.
Shim, S. H., Cheon, H. W., Choi, J. B., & Yoon, T. H. (2026). Dysphagia rehabilitation methods using kinesiology taping: A systematic review. Medicine, 105(11), e47929.
Li, X., Cai, H., Tang, K., & Li, F. (2024). The efficacy of Kinesio taping in patients with post-stroke dysphagia: A meta-analysis. Medicine, 103(11), e37491.
Jung, Y. J., Kim, H. J., Choi, J. B., Park, J. S., & Hwang, N. K. (2020, October). Effect of dysphagia rehabilitation using kinesiology taping on oropharyngeal muscle hypertrophy in post-stroke patients: a double blind randomized placebo-controlled trial. In Healthcare (Vol. 8, No. 4, p. 411). MDPI.
Mikami, D. L. Y., Furia, C. L. B., & Welker, A. F. (2019). Addition of Kinesio Taping of the orbicularis oris muscles to speech therapy rapidly improves drooling in children with neurological disorders. Developmental Neurorehabilitation, 22(1), 13-18.
Pervez R, Naz S, Babur N, Mumtaz N. Effects of kinesio taping compared with manipulation therapy on drooling and speech intelligibility in children with oral dysphagia: a pilot study. Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine. 2022;28:48-51.
Wu, Z., Li, S., Yan, G., Yi, Y. U. L. O. N. G., Tang, Q. I. P. I. N. G., & Chen, H. U. A. N. (2025). Evaluating the efficacy of “Y”-shaped kinesiology tape in early-stage rehabilitation for post-stroke dysphagia. Journal of Mechanics in Medicine and Biology, 25(08), 2540073.
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