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"Clothes [Do Not] Make the Man"

Editor in Chief rebeccacraik{at}apta.org

Or, in this case, the woman (apologies to Mark Twain)! Welcome to the New Year. I want to draw your attention to the redesign of PTJ. This new look—which includes cover art on the perception of movement and a crisp layout—is not just a case of the "emperor's new clothes." The fresh design heralds changes to the substance of PTJ. As a result of decisions made at our Editorial Board meeting in November, we will begin rolling out new policies and content over the next several months.

One of the pending changes will require all of us to become more comfortable in our understanding of the standard error of measurement (SEM), minimal detectable change (MDC), and minimal clinically important difference (MCID).

Measurement and PTJ are, of course, old friends. In 1987, APTA appointed the Task Force for the Development of Standards for Tests and Measurements, and Editor in Chief Emeritus Dr Jules Rothstein and Dr John Echternach—with assistance from Eugene Michels, PT, FAPTA—authored the Primer on Measurement: An Introductory Guide to Measurement Issues. The content became the Association's standard for tests and measurements in physical therapist practice. The need for valid and reliable measurements became Rothstein's mantra. Numerous editorials, presentations at conferences around the world, and workshops at annual meetings introduced the concepts of reliability and validity. Authors submitting manuscripts to the Journal were required to include a description of an instrument's measurement properties, including the reliability of its measurements. Authors, professional students, academicians, and clinicians all came to understand the terms "reliability" and "validity" and learned about intraclass correlations. Rothstein's illness, however, prevented him from helping us to understand that reliability was only a means to a much more important end point, and the Primer hasn't been updated since 1993.

PTJ remains very interested in the measurement properties of tools that are used to make diagnoses and measure changes in a patient's status or outcome following intervention. In addition to reliability and validity, however, it is important to know how much change must occur on measurement to ensure that the reported difference is true change rather than measurement error. Many articles describe these measurement properties. Now, PTJ will begin helping authors and readers make use of these descriptors.

Regarding new content: Your response to "The Bottom Line," our clinical summary feature that debuted in August 2006, has been bimodal. It seems that readers have developed a love/hate relationship with The Bottom Line! Some readers say that we are "dumbing down" the research data, whereas others make such comments as, "I can't wait to read the Bottom Line feature; it helps me determine if I should spend the time reading the entire article." Overall, we believe there is benefit to the reader in providing "bottom lines," but we will offer this feature online only to APTA members and subscribers.

	Note From the Editorial Office: More About PTJ's New "Clothes"

 
As most of you know by now, in addition to our redesigned print Journal, we have a new Web site—same address (www.ptjournal.org), but a total renovation! Launched in September 2006, the site has been steadily adding new features. Readers can now respond immediately to an article by clicking on "Submit a Response" in the right-hand navigation box. These eLetters are reviewed and, if accepted, are posted within 72 hours. We encourage you to use this feature to engage in thoughtful dialogue about research findings and their implications. The best eLetters will be selected for publication in print in a subsequent issue.

Another newly activated feature is "Most Read" (50 most frequently read articles based on hits received) and "Most Cited" (50 most often cited articles based on citations to PTJ articles from articles in the HighWire-hosted repository of more than 1,000 journals). Both lists are recalculated at the beginning of each month to provide readers and authors with a snapshot of the content that their colleagues (and other consumers) are accessing most. During the month of November 2006, the most frequently accessed article was "Gait Characteristics of Elderly People With a History of Falls: A Dynamic Approach" (Barak et al. 2006;86:1501–1510). As of December 1, the most-cited article was "Reliability of the Fugl-Meyer Assessment for Testing Motor Performance in Patients Following Stroke" (Sanford et al. 1993;73:447–454).

Also new since our launch in September:

• Lists of future titles, so that you can see what articles are coming up as soon as the Editorial Office schedules them (http://www.ptjournal.org/future.dtl).
  
• The Bottom Line, a clinical summary that translates research findings for application in practice, now has its own page, http://www.ptjournal.org/misc/bottomline.dtl.
  
• Archives—which contain article PDFs going back to January 1990, full-text articles going back to January 1999, and entire issue contents beginning with January 2006—can now be browsed according to category (http://www.ptjournal.org/collections).
  

As you are browsing through archived articles, take note: at the bottom of many full-text articles, you will find journal icons that are hyperlinked to articles in HighWire-hosted journals that have cited PTJ articles. The hyperlinks allow you to click and view full text of the citing articles. Likewise, the titles of all HighWire-hosted journal articles that are cited in PTJ article reference lists are hyperlinked and can be viewed in full text by PTJ readers, even if they aren't subscribers to those journals.

Hundreds of you have signed up for free table-of-contents and citation alerts. Alerts can be tailored to your specific research interests. Go to www.ptjournal.org, and click on "Sign up for e-Alerts."

More to come. Include www.ptjournal.org as one of your browser favorites, and keep connected!

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This Article Full Text (PDF) Submit a response Alert me when this article is cited Alert me when Rapid Responses are posted Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Craik, R. L Search for Related Content PubMed Articles by Craik, R. L Related Collections All Editorials Rebecca Craik Social Bookmarking                      What's this?