Catherine Miller (pictured) and James An presented their posters at the 2011 Kinesio Taping Association International Symposium.

LAKELAND, FL (May 10, 2011) -- Two Florida Southern College athletic training students, James An and Catherine Miller, have been accepted for a poster presentation at the 2011 Kinesio Taping Association International Symposium to be held June 24-26 at the Orlando World Center Marriott. An and Miller will present the results of a research study they conducted during the 2010 fall semester under the supervision of Dr. Mick Lynch, clinical education coordinator  and  professor of athletic training, and Michael McElveen, assistant director of wellness programs.

The project, funded by a grant from the Kinesio Taping Association, was entitled "The Effect of Kinesio Tape on Functional Movement Screening." It combined two emerging areas of study in the field of athletic training, Kinesio taping and Functional Movement Screening (FMS), in order to determine whether Kinesio taping would reduce an athlete's injury prediction score.

Kinesio tape, used to provide support and stability to muscles and joints while improving function, gained visibility when beach volleyball player Kerri Walsh wore it on her shoulder during the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. FMS is a popular new concept used to assess injury risk by analyzing an athlete's movement patterns and correcting those that are faulty and could lead to injury. An's inspiration was to study the two concepts in conjunction to determine if it decreased injury.

"James is extremely capable of making connections between concepts, as evidenced by this research project," said Lynch. "He came up with this original idea.  The Kinesio Taping Association was intrigued with it and awarded James a grant to pursue the project."

An, assisted by Miller, involved the FSC women's basketball team as the test subjects for the study and used a segment of the FSC undergraduate population as a control group. Their findings will be displayed at the symposium on a poster.

An came to the United States from South Korea, where he trained as a physical therapist. He recently earned his degree in athletic training at Florida Southern and completed his semester internship this spring at the world renowned Andrews Institute for Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine and Athlete's Performance in Gulf Breeze, FL. He has since returned to South Korea to get advanced physical therapy training.

Miller just completed her first year as an athletic training major. She came to Florida Southern from Naperville, IL, and quickly agreed to contribute to this project. Miller learned how to apply Kinesio tape and participated in the sessions with both the FSC women's basketball team and the control group.

"Catherine is an excellent student and we expect great things from her over the next three years. We are already working on projects for the next two years," said Lynch.

In addition to the results of this project and other research presentations, the Kinesio Taping Association's International Symposium will feature keynote speeches from leaders in the field as well as sessions and workshops for both new and seasoned practitioners.