Wading our way through information overload

Article Outline

• Copyright

Physical Therapy in Sport aims to publish research and clinical practice material that is relevant to people working across the spectrum of sports medicine professions. Publishing such material is one way of disseminating research and clinical findings that support the work health-care practitioners are implementing in clinics and with sports teams. As well, being able to read about research findings serves the role of giving new ideas to clinicians and researchers. With a plethora of journals and public access information now available on the world wide web it is important for people to be able to sort through this material and search for information that will be highly relevant to the questions they have. Searching journal indexing and abstract databases is simple, providing you know what you are doing. If searching in the wrong way, however, the consumer will be faced by an enormous body of mostly irrelevant information.

While most academics and newer graduates are now used to searching databases, many others are only commencing their journey through the maze of the word wide web. Having a tool so powerful on our desktops at home and work allows us the luxury of looking for new ideas on patient presentations and treatment options almost instantaneously. Providing relevant information for patients is also now possible by directing them to relevant websites. To make these exercises efficient, however, search method skills are required. A simple Google search using a term such as “web searching tutorial” comes up with a huge number of easy to follow on-line tutorials that will not only get you started, but also teach you advanced skills to make the time you spend researching on the web more efficient. I strongly suggest you take advantage of such opportunities.

By the time this issue is published the Enhancing Recovery and Performance in Sport conference run jointly by Physical Therapy in Sport, the Association of Chartered Physiotherapists in Sports Medicine, and the International Federation of Sports Physiotherapy will have taken place. We look forward to bringing you a full report on this conference in the next issue.

In this issue of Physical Therapy in Sport we lead with two papers that focus on the glenohumeral joint. In the first, Anderson and colleagues from the University of Melbourne report on the test–retest reliability of internal and external rotation strength assessment in patients with chronic rotator cuff pathology. They demonstrated a reliable test protocol that will be useful for researchers and clinicians alike. Such a protocol allows for patient changes over time to be evaluated and also used as justification for rehabilitation progression and return to activity. In the second paper, Hatzel and colleagues from the US describe an innovative way to measure glenohumeral joint laxity using the KT-2000 knee ligament arthrometer. It is reported that the adaptation of the KT-2000 provided a reliable method of measuring anterior translation of the glenohumeral joint. With little in the way of a gold standard for assessing glenohumeral joint laxity, the findings of this method are welcomed as a way forward. Moving from the upper limb to the lower limb, Wong and Ng from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University investigated four different surface electrode placements to record EMG activity of the medial and lateral vasti muscles. This work is important not only in relation to assessing muscle activity, but also in terms of the increased emphasis clinicians are placing on biofeedback as a component to rehabilitation. It was found that variation of electrode placement by small distances can influence EMG readings, and hence the vastus medialis obliquus to vastus lateralis ratio. We also include in this issue a paper by Mosler and colleagues from the Australian Institute of Sport examining the effect of an eight-session manual therapy program on hip joint range of motion, pain, and functional performance in water polo players. It was shown that the manual therapy intervention, consisting of trigger point work, passive tissue tensioning, friction massage, stretches, and hip distraction techniques, improved hip internal and external rotation, and likely contributed to better jump height from the water and eggbeater kick endurance. The applied approach to this paper is to be commended, and it serves as an example of the clinical-research nexus so important to the sports medicine professions. In the last of our original research papers in this issue, Bowerman and colleagues from the University of Texas examine laxity in the knee (by anterior tibial translation) in athletes and non-athletes. They found that non-athletes displayed greater laxity than athletes, and discuss the importance of the hamstrings to quadriceps strength ratio in this difference.

True to the clinical and applied focus of Physical Therapy in Sport we also include two case reports in this issue. The first by Wollin and Lovell from the Australian Institute of Sport is a case series of four young elite football players presenting with osteitis pubis. The rehabilitation program is clearly described, as are the criteria for returning to football. This paper also discusses potential new clinical milestones relevant to rehabilitation monitoring. The final paper in this issue is a case report by Newberry and Bishop from University of Florida focusing on plyometric and agility training as part of post-surgical rehabilitation from a medial and lateral menisectomy and lateral femoral chondroplasty.

I hope you enjoy the range of papers presented in this issue as much as I have enjoyed reading them as they came through the submission and publication process.