Objective. Tennis elbow is a common cause of upper limb dysfunction and a primary reason for pain at the lateral aspect of the elbow. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of three commonly used orthoses on pain severity. An elbow band, an elbow sleeve, and a wrist splint were assessed for their ability to reduce the level of reported pain. Method. A crossover randomized controlled trial was used. The orthoses were worn in a randomized order, and all participants were required to complete a control trial for which they wore a placebo orthosis. 52 participants with lateral epicondylalgia were recruited, and the level of pain at their elbow was recorded using the visual analogue scale (VAS). Results. The reported pain for all orthoses was lower than that of the placebo ( ). Pain reduction was significantly greater with a counterforce elbow band or a counterforce elbow sleeve compared to a wrist splint ( ). There was no significant difference between a counterforce elbow band and a counterforce elbow sleeve ( ). Conclusion. All the types of orthoses studied showed an immediate improvement on pain severity in people with lateral epicondylalgia. The counterforce elbow orthoses (elbow band and elbow sleeve) presented the greatest improvement, suggesting that either of them can be used as a first treatment choice to alleviate the pain in people with tennis elbow. 1. Introduction Lateral epicondylalgia, or tennis elbow, is a painful condition associated with repetitive strains of the wrist extensor tendons [1–4]. This overuse syndrome is characterised by pain and tenderness below the lateral epicondyle, which is exacerbated when subjected to a resisted wrist extension [1]. People who engage in the repetitive hand tasks are more susceptible to this type of injury [5–7]. This injury occurs in 1–3% of the general population [8]; however, this increases to more than 50% in tennis players, a population that use regular repetitive hand functions [9]. The cause of the lesion is believed to be the overloading of the wrist extensors’ common origin at the lateral aspect of the elbow [3]. There are numerous treatment modalities employed for lateral epicondylalgia, including orthotics. The main objective in orthotic therapy is to target the cause of the lesion by reducing the overloading strains on the common origin of the wrist extensors [10, 11]. A number of strategies were reported to achieve this goal and several orthotic approaches have been used accordingly. An elbow band (strap) is a common device which is worn below the elbow. It applies a
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