The Michigan Electronic Library: Evaluating Health Information on the Internet
Using information from the Internet can be very risky without consideration of some basic guidelines for evaluating the resources available. This site gives articles, checklists, etc. which enable the researcher to make judgments about the quality and reliability of the health information found in cyberspace.
Jumping-off Points for Research
MedWeb
This Web page provides a starting place with links to research as well as to professional organizations. To reach the Physical Therapy links, click on “Browse by subject”. Be sure to look at some of the other subjects in the MedWeb Index since there will be others appropriate to what ever research need you might have.
HealthWeb
HealthWeb provides links to specific, evaluated information resources on the
World-Wide Web selected by librarians and information professionals at
leading academic medical centers in the Midwest. Selection emphasizes
quality information aimed at assisting health care professionals as well as
consumers in meeting their health information needs.
Spine-health.com
The Spine-health.com site features “hundreds of articles about back pain, neck pain and treatment options, including physical therapy and exercise programs.” The site is non-commercial (not owned or influenced by anyone trying to sell products or services), and it is unique in that all of the articles are peer-reviewed by members of the sites's Medical Advisory Board (similar to a medical journal review process).
Michigan Electronic Library: Health Information Resources
This excellent site has a classified arrangement of health resources. The resources include “coverage of health information of interest to the general public, and professional information is selected for issues related to maintaining positive health status or for general information to the community as well as for primary care practitioners not affiliated with academic centers.”
Selected Other Sites Relating to Physical Therapy
American Physical Therapy Association (APTA)
This professional organization has designed a page that links to organization-specific information and to APTA's journals and other research.
Doctor's Guide to the Internet
Lots of good links for professionals on medical news and alerts, international medical conferences, a medical bookstore, Internet resources for the professional and for consumers (in a classified listing); there is even a link to travel and leisure for conference or leisure time activities for the medical professional.
Internet Resources for Physiotherapy
The University of South Australia (Adelaide) maintains this site. The listing on this page contains newsgroups, discussion lists, libraries, conferences, government information, professional organizations, a variety of electronic texts and electronic journals, and last, but not least, “other physiotherapy Web sites.”
The Physical Therapy Web Space
This site contains career information and actual job postings. It also has a list of links out to physical therapy sites and a cache of physio articles on a variety of topics of interest to physical therapists.