Research in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation

Abstract

Researchers in physical medicine and rehabilitation require access to information regarding possible interventions and programs, available services and technology, research (published, unpublished and in progress), statistics on incidence, prevalence and expected recovery, and funding sources. This paper provides an overview to the most readily available sources of information, including 16 abstracts and indexes, 6 sources of review articles, 9 population statistical databases and 84 journals specifically devoted to rehabilitation. Of these journals, 29 may be accessed through Medline and 32 through other sources. An additional 58 journals indexed in Medline publish more than 16 rehabilitation articles per year. The journals within Medline that publish the most rehabilitation articles are listed by topic area: geriatric rehabilitation, cardiac rehabilitation, pediatric rehabilitation, rehabilitation research, self-help devices, sports medicine and rheumatologic rehabilitation. Specific search strategies that may be used for any computer assisted search of Medline are given to locate articles in these topic areas and also the following areas: amputee rehabilitation, spinal cord injury rehabilitation, traumatic brain injury rehabilitation, cerebral palsy rehabilitation, stroke rehabilitation, decubitus care, electrodiagnosis, rehabilitation engineering, pain rehabilitation, pulmonary rehabilitation, sexual rehabilitation and urologic rehabilitation. The user friendly Grateful Med software is introduced for simplified online Medline searching. Exercises are provided for starting a journal club with the retrieved articles.