Submissions
Physiotherapy Practice and Research welcomes submissions in
the form of original research papers, critical reviews
(systematic or state-of-the-art papers), case studies,
editorials, expert commentaries and book reviews. Letters to
the editor are also welcome. The journal will commission
focussed or clinical reviews in areas of interest; those
planning reviews should contact the editor in the first
instance. Physiotherapy Practice and Research also aims to
foster research capacity within the profession and as such
supports and encourages submission from new researchers.
All submissions must have a title and an abstract, be on A4
paper with numbered pages, be double-line spaced and have a
margin of 2.5cm all around. The body of text must not exceed
12 pt font. Illustrations, figures and tables should be
placed at the end of the paper (after the references) and
not inserted into text.
Please read these instructions carefully, as any manuscripts
not complying with these guidelines will be sent back to the
authors for revisions prior to any review being undertaken.

GENERAL FORMATTING
All submissions must have a title and an abstract, be on A4
paper with numbered pages, be double-line spaced and have a
margin of 2.5 cm all around.  Lines must also be numbered
continuously throughout the text.  The body of text must not
exceed 12 pt font. Illustrations, figures and tables should
be placed at the end of the paper (after the references)and
not inserted in the text. All articles should be written in
UK English.

Title page
The title page should carry the following information:

• The manuscript should have a concise title (usually no
more than 15 words).
• Authors’ names and institutional affiliations, including
the name of the department(s) and institution(s) to which
the work should be attributed. Contact information for
corresponding author. The name, address, telephone and
e-mail address of the corresponding author
responsible for correspondence about the manuscript.
 • A word count for the text only (excluding abstract,
acknowledgments, figure legends, and references). Please
provide up to 5 key words to assist with indexing of the
article and place them under the abstract.

Abstract
The abstract should follow the title page, maximum word
length 250 words. The abstract (using the headings in bold)
should provide the context or background for the study and
should state the study’s purpose, basic methods, main
results, and principal conclusions. It should emphasize new
and important aspects of the study or observations.
Manuscripts are usually (but not necessarily) divided into
the following sections: Introduction, Methods, Results, and
Discussion. Manuscripts should be normally be approximately
3500–4500 words. Manuscripts longer than this should be
discussed with the Editor prior to submission.

Introduction
The introduction should provide the context or background
for the study. State the specific aim or research objective
of the study or observation. The introduction should not
include data or conclusions from the work being reported.

Methods
The Methods section should give the methodological framework
of the study. The methods should allow a clear appreciation
of how the study was done. Describe your selection of
participants including inclusion and exclusion criteria.
Identify the methods, apparatus (give the manufacturer’s
name and address in parentheses), and procedures in
sufficient detail to allow others to reproduce the results.
Authors submitting review manuscripts should include a
section describing the methods used for locating, selecting,
extracting, and synthesizing data. These methods should also
be summarized in the abstract. Describe statistical methods
with enough detail to enable a knowledgeable reader with
access to the original data to verify the reported results.
Specify the computer software used.

Results
Results should be presented in a logical sequence in the
text, tables, and figures. The most important finding or
main findings should be presented first. Do not repeat all
the data in the tables or figures in the text; emphasize or
summarize only the most important observations. Please
indicate in text where tables and figures should be inserted
using, for example ‘Insert Table 1 here’.
Tables and figures should be included at the end of the
manuscript after the references. 

Discussion
The discussion should emphasize the new and important
aspects of the study and the conclusions that follow from
them. Do not repeat results in detail or other information
given in the introduction. For experimental studies, it is
useful to begin the discussion by summarizing briefly the
main findings, then explore possible mechanisms or
explanations for these findings, compare and contrast the
results with other relevant studies, state the limitations
of the study, and explore the implications of the findings
for future research and for clinical practice.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST
Authors should provide a conflict of interest statement.  If
there is no conflict, then please state "The authors have no
conflict of interest to report". 

References
In accordance with the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts
Submitted to Biomedical Journals, Physiotherapy Practice and
Research uses the Vancouver referencing style. Examples can
be found at
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.html In the
Vancouver style, a consecutive number is allocated to each
reference when it is first cited in a manuscript. Place
citations as numbers in square brackets in the text,
punctuation should be after the the square brackets.Where
more than one reference is used, numbers are separated by
commas and consecutive numbers are joined with a hyphen e.g.
[1,2,3-5]. References are listed at the end of the
manuscript using the numerical order in which they are cited
in text.

Journal article
[1] McVeigh JG, McGaughey H, Hall M, Kane P. The
effectiveness of hydrotherapy in the management of
fibromyalgia syndrome: a systematic review. Rheumatol Int.
2008;29:119-30. 
Book
[2] Main C, Sullivan M, Watson P, Pain Management 2nd ed.
London: Churchill Livingstone; 2007.

Note: Month and issue number are omitted from the reference.
The titles of Journals should be abbreviated according to
the style used in the list of Journals Indexed for MEDLINE,
posted by the NLM on the library’s web site
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/tsd/serials/lji.html 

Illustrations
Supply each illustration on a separate sheet, with the lead
author’s name and the figure number. Line artwork must be
high-quality laser output (not photocopies). Images should
high resolution (300 dpi) and saved as jpegs, not saved in
Word documents. Images from websites cannot be used as these
are low resolution. It is the author’s responsibility to
ensure that permission is received from the copyright holder
for the reproduction of illustrations before submission.
This should also be submitted with the manuscript.

Ethical considerations
Research reports involving human or animal subjects must
indicate if ethical approval was obtained from a formally
constituted ethical committee, and that the procedures
followed during the study were in accordance with the
Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 1983. Material
identifying participants should not be published, do not use
patients’ names, initials, or hospital numbers, particularly
with illustrations. If photographs of people are used,
facial features must be obscured to make the participant
unrecognisable and pictures must be accompanied by written
permission from the subject (or their parent or guardian) to
publish the photograph.

Copyright
Authors submitting a manuscript do so on the understanding
that they have read and agreed to the terms of the IOS Press Author Copyright Agreement.

Peer review
Physiotherapy Practice and Research operates a blind peer
review policy for all research or scientific papers. All
submissions to the Journal are screened for suitability by
the Editor. If considered to be of interest to the
readership of Physiotherapy Practice and Research and of
sufficient quality they are sent for review by at least two
reviewers. Decisions on whether a manuscript is accepted,
accepted with revisions, or not suitable for publication in
its present form, will be made by the Editor after
considering peer reviews. The Editor will inform authors of
peer reviewers’ comments.

To submit a manuscript, fill in the following form and click
the Submit button. The manuscript file should not be open on
your desktop. All tables, figures and other graphics should
be contained within the manuscript itself.

Enter the corresponding author's information below. The
cover letter should include the names and affiliations of
all authors.

PLEASE NOTE THAT ANY MANUSCRIPTS NOT COMPLYING WITH THESE
GUIDELINES WILL BE SENT BACK TO THE AUTHORS FOR REVISIONS
PRIOR TO ANY REVIEW PROCESS BEING UNDERTAKEN.