Part 3 - Locating Case Studies

Part 3 - Locating Case Studies

Finding Your Case Study

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You have two choices for locating your case study:

- In print at the MCCC Library.

- Using an MCCC Library online database.

The choice is yours.

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Case Studies In Print

The library subscribes to Physical Therapy (The Journal of the American Physical Therapy Association).

Ask for Physical Therapy at the circulation desk in the front of the library.

The library keeps the most recent three years of Physical Therapy.

Print Case Studies in Physical Therapy

•Some but not all issues of Physical Therapy will contain case studies.

•Look for the Case Report heading on the cover.

Cover scan made from the MCCC Library collection

Using The MCCC Library Databases To Find Case Studies

You can also obtain a case study from the MCCC Library's online databases.

Use the "Health Sciences" section of the database page to get to the relevant databases for this assignment

The ProQuest Health and Medical Complete database works especially well for locating case studies.

NOTE: Click on the Accessing MCCC Databases link to the left if you want to find out how to access the MCCC Library's databases

Now how can I find just the scholarly peer-reviewed Physical Therapy focused case study articles about a single patient that's less than five years old in the ProQuest Health and Medical Complete database ???

Try using the advanced search features.

NOTE: You can click in the Advanced Database Searching link to the left for access to a video that describes using the ProQuest database advanced search features.

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Advanced Database Searching

Unlike research for a term paper, you need very specific info for this assignment.

For this assignment you need information that is:

a case study
from a peer-reviewed scholarly journal
focused on just Physical Therapy
less than 5 years old

The database's advanced search features can help you focus in on this specific information efficiently.

You will need to read through the case studies you find to make sure that it covers just a single patient.

NOTE: You can click on the Advanced Database Searching link to the left for access to a video that describes using the ProQuest database advanced search features.

Getting to the Advances Search Screen in ProQuest

Beginning at the MCCC Library's Online Database page, select the ProQuest Health and Medical Complete database in the "Health Sciences" category
Once at the opening screen click on "advanced search".

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NOTE: Click on the Advanced Database Searching link to the left for access to a video that describes using the ProQuest database advanced search features.

Start filling in the info you need on the advanced search page

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NOTE: Click on the Advanced Database Searching link to the left for access to a video that describes using the ProQuest database advanced search features.

Continue to fill in the info you need on the advanced search page

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NOTE: Click on the Advanced Database Searching link to the left for access to a video that describes using the ProQuest database advanced search features.

What's the MeSH subjects and Physical Therapy Modalities all about??

MeSH

The National Library of Medicine (NLM) has developed a list of standardized medical subject terms. These terms known as medical subject headings or MeSH were initially intended for use at the Federal Government's PubMed website. The MeSH are now used at other medical informational sources (like the ProQuest Health & Medical Complete database). For more info on MeSH go to: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/mesh.

Physical Therapy Modalities

When used in reference to a medical term, the word modalities (the plural of modality) refers to a form of procedure. So:

Physical Therapy Modalities ≈ Physical Therapy Procedures

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Scroll down to finish filling in the info you need on the advanced search page

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Then click on Search

NOTE: Click on the Advanced Database Searching link to the left for access to a video that describes using the ProQuest database advanced search features.

Using Your Search Results

You should now have a relatively short list of articles. Many will work for this case study assignment.

Most case studies will be from journals in the Physical Therapy field. However, a few will come from other fields as well. Check with your instructor to make sure you found an acceptable case study for the assignment.

Peer reviewed/scholarly articles are intended to inform readers about the research a person has done and the results of their findings. In order to make scholarly peer-reviewed articles easier to read and understand, they are broken down into different part or sections.

Physical Therapy case studies commonly include sections like: Background, Case Description, Results, Discussion. Look for these parts in the articles you choose. NOTE: Some articles will be abbreviated case studies and may not work for this assignment, check with your instructor if you are unsure.

Remember to read through your article to make sure it focuses on a single patient... most will.