Physical Therapy Resources for the Unaffiliated PT: Freely Available Resources

PTNow's mission is to assist physical therapists and physical therapist assistants in day-to-day practice. Its official mission statement: "PTNow translates physical therapy knowledge into action, supports evidence-informed care, and helps clinicians improve their clinical decision making. PTNow promotes using the best available evidence to achieve optimal patient outcomes and enhances collaboration within the physical therapy profession."

Google Scholar provides a way to search a large number of scholarly literature citations using the familiar Google search interface. Favors highly-cited articles to bring important research to the top. Full-text links out the right when available.

REHABDATA, produced by the National Rehabilitation Information Center, is the leading literature database on disability and rehabilitation. The database describes over 80,000 documents covering physical, mental, and psychiatric disabilities, independent living, vocational rehabilitation, special education, assistive technology, law, employment, and other issues as they relate to people with disabilities.

PubMed Central® (PMC) is a free full-text archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature at the U.S. National Institutes of Health's National Library of Medicine (NIH/NLM).

The Rehabilitation Measures Database provides evidence-based summaries that include concise descriptions of psychometric properties, instructions for administering and scoring, a representative bibliography, and, whenever possible, a copy of the instrument.

The Alabama Virtual Library provides all students, teachers, and citizens of the State of Alabama with online access to essential library and information resources. It is primarily a group of online databases that have magazine, journal, and newspaper articles for research.

Order articles from NARIC Database

Checks to see if the article at which you are looking is available legally though Open-Access (from institutional repository, the publisher, or the author)

You can use MedlinePlus to learn about the latest treatments, look up information on a drug or supplement, find out the meanings of words, or view medical videos or illustrations. You can also get links to the latest medical research on your topic or find out about clinical trials on a disease or condition.

Your local library may have similar professional collection subscriptions no matter where you practice.
Libraries provide a service called Interlibrary Loan (ILL) through which they can order any article for small fee.

The Library is open to the public, so anyone may visit and use its resources.

Organization memberships keep you up to date on the latest in your field. They offer publications, meetings, and continuing education opportunities.

Following other professionals on social media can help you stay up to date and take part in professional discussions without having to set aside extra time.