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The purpose of this project was to evaluate the development and delivery of a hypertext case scenario document to be used as the capstone assessment tool for doctoral-level physical therapy students. The integration of Web-based collaborative tools (PBworks[TM] and Google Sites[TM]) allowed students in this all-online course to apply their pharmacotherapy knowledge in a physical therapy patient scenario, while working with colleagues to determine the best route of patient care. Students developed digital writing skills imperative to a patient-centered, collaborative health-care field, and practiced evidence-based patient care. The findings demonstrate that the implementation of collaborative digital writing with a hypertext document case scenario assessment as the primary assessment tool in this online pharmacotherapy course delivered to doctoral-level physical therapy students is a feasible and effective educational strategy. (Contains 4 tables and 3 figures.)

Background: Osteoarthritis is a leading cause of disability. Nonsur-gical treatment is a key first step. Purpose: Systematic literature review of physical therapy (PT) in-terventions for community-dwelling adults with knee osteoarthritis. Data Sources: MEDLINE, the Cochrane Library, the Physiotherapy Evidence Database, Scirus, Allied and Complementary Medicine, and the Health and Psychosocial Instruments bibliography database. Study Selection: 193 randomized, controlled trials (RCTs) published in English from 1970 to 29 February 2012. Data Extraction: Means of outcomes, PT interventions, and risk of bias were extracted to pool standardized mean differences. Dis-agreements between reviewers abstracting and checking data were resolved through discussion. Data Synthesis: Meta-analyses of 84 RCTs provided evidence for 13 PT interventions on pain (58 RCTs), physical function (36 RCTs), and disability (29 RCTs). Meta-analyses provided low-strength ev-idence that aerobic (11 RCTs) and aquatic (3 RCTs) exercise im-proved disability and that aerobic exercise (19 RCTs), strengthening exercise (17 RCTs), and ultrasonography (6 RCTs) reduced pain and improved function. Several individual RCTs demonstrated clinically important improvements in pain and disability with aerobic exercise. Other PT interventions demonstrated no sustained benefit. Individ-ual RCTs showed similar benefits with aerobic, aquatic, and strengthening exercise. Adverse events were uncommon and did not deter participants from continuing treatment. Limitation: Variability in PT interventions and outcomes measures hampered synthesis of evidence. Conclusion: Low-strength evidence suggested that only a few PT interventions were effective. Future studies should compare com-bined PT Interventions (which is how PT is generally administered for pain associated with knee osteoarthritis). Primary Funding Source: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]