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Case Reporting

Ms. Mauser is Associate Staff Editor, Publications Department, American Physical Therapy Association, 1156 15th St NW, Washington, DC 20005 (USA).

This excerpt was created in the absence of an abstract.

DEFINITION

A case report is a short paper that describes the treatment of a patient who has an unusual problem or that presents a unique solution to a common problem.¹

PURPOSE

A case report must teach. The only purpose for writing a case study is to educate the reader. The unique factor that sets a case report apart from other types of informative articles is its pragmatic perspective. Information from a case report can be used in several ways. For instance, the information can be extrapolated and incorporated immediately into a patient care regimen, details about the treatment program and results can be compared with similar cases, or the concepts presented can be retained for future use in providing patient care. Because the case report informs the reader about clinical events, it must: 1) Describe a situation that has a reasonable likelihood of happening again....

Key Words: Education, medical • Physical therapy • Writing