Background and purpose: Balance impairment is one of the major health problems in elderly. Kinsiotaping and stretching techniques are effective in balance improvement. To the best of our knowledge, no study have compared the effects of kinesiotaping and stretching of gastrocnemius on balance in elderly. So, we aimed at comparing the effects of these two methods on balance in elderly.

Materials and methods: In this randomized clinical trial, 40 elderly women and men were randomly assigned into 2 groups of kinesiotaping and stretching. Inhibitory tape was applied on the gastrocnemius while in stretching group, the muscle was stretched for 60 seconds in 4 times. The static balance was examined before and after the interventions, using single leg stance test and checking the changes of center of pressure by force plate. According to normal distribution of data, Independent t-test was used to compare the means between groups and paired t-test was used for within group analysis.

Results: Despite progress in time of unilateral standing after the interventions, the changes were not significant (P>0.05). Mediolateral changes of center of pressure in females were significantly lower after the use of stretching rather than kinesiotaping (P=0.04). Moreover, elderly women showed significant decrease in mediolateral changes of center of pressure after the use of stretching compared with that before the use (P=0.02).

Conclusion: The short term effect of gastrocnemius stretching could lead to significant improvement of mediolateral balance in elderly female. Also, the decreasing trend in changes of center of body mass in men after the stretching may indicate the effectiveness of this treatment.