Physiotherapy October 2003/vol 89/no 10

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Slack, Thorofare, New Jersey2002 (ISBN 1 55642 416 7). 192 pages

by Joan E Edelstein and Jan Bruckner £31.50This book is intended as a text for students and a referencefor practitioners of various professions such as physio-therapists, physicians, occupational therapists, orthotists,pedorthists, rehabilitation nurses and other healthcareprofessionals. It should live up to being a very usefulresource tool.

The main focus of the book is to provide readers withknowledge of a wide variety of orthotic designs andmaterials. This is to enable clinicians to prescribe orthoseswhich patients will both comply with and benefit from;following a thorough evaluation of biomechanical, neuro-musculoskeletal and psychosocial aspects.

This work is well organised, starting with a base intro-duction to orthotics and then following in a logical orderanatomically, chapter through chapter. The illustrationswithin each section are a necessary visual aid to help with the

understanding of the subject matter. Their clarity adds totheir usefulness as a resource tool.

References are clearly documented at the end of eachchapter, together with relevant recommended reading. Theappendices are up to date, with contacts for professionalorganisations and sources for orthoses, materials andcomponents, together with the modern approach ofrelevant websites.

The only drawback is that the professional organisationscontact list and sources (appendix B) are all, bar one,American based. In such a form they do not take intoconsideration worldwide distribution and readership or aworldwide knowledge base.

There are useful learning tools at the end of the chapters,namely ‘Thought questions’. These are intended to provokereaders’ clinical reasoning skills, to aid best prescribing andappropriate rehabilitation. These are reinforced by casestudies and guidance with orthotic prescription, short- andlong-term goal setting and a physiotherapy plan from bothof the authors. In conclusion, the authors through this firstedition have developed a very readable and visuallystimulating resource tool, which welcomes readers, whatevertheir profession.

Rachel Clarke BSc MCSP

Orthotics A comprehensive clinical approach

Book reviews

Elsevier Science, Edinburgh2003, 5th edn (ISBN 0 7234 3212 0). Illus. 378 pages

by Peter Abrahams, Sandy Marks and Ralph Hutchings £39The latest edition of this book is a beautifully produced text,which would be an excellent reference tool for specialistneuromusculoskeletal physiotherapists, seeking verydetailed information on anatomical structures, through tostudent physiotherapists engaged in the process of learningthe fundamental topographical relationships that willinform their future craft.

Readers are led into each anatomical area in an intuitiveway, with careful juxtapositioning of clear, labelledphotographs of dissections and explanatory line diagrams.Clinical relevance is enhanced by the use of surface anatomy‘locators’ that demonstrate the region dissected on a livemodel.

Particularly helpful is the provision of clinical notes in

each section, which identify the clinical correlates ofanatomical structures. These notes are presented inhighlighted in-text boxes which further increases theaccessibility of the information.

Where appropriate, radiological and laparoscopic imagesare also provided, and these additional sources andmodalities of information further support the process which enables the generation by readers of a detailed mental three-dimensional image of a region.

An additional educational feature is the inclusion of a CD-ROM which contains three-dimensional anatomical modelsof seven regions of the body. The images created may berotated, layers of muscle may be added and removed, andthere is also a self-test function. The CD-ROM would be aparticularly useful tool for students, to support them in theirinitial learning of three-dimensional regional anatomy.

Overall, this is a very well-produced and reader-friendlytext that would be a useful reference tool within physio-therapy departments and university libraries, or bought for personal use by therapists with a specific interest in neuromusculoskeletal physiotherapy practice.

Karen Harrison MSc BEd MCSP ILTM DipTP

McMinn’s Colour Atlas ofHuman Anatomy