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Orthotics & Prosthetics

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Cochrane Library is a powerful database of literature reviews, research protocols, and clinical controlled trials that can be used to inform healthcare decision-making.

Cochrane is also a non-profit international network of researchers who produce high quality systematic reviews on current medical evidence, which is especially important when evaluating the information and claims from commercial pharmaceutical companies and medical device manufactures. 

Try a basic or advanced search in Cochrane Library using keywords related to your topic. 

You can filter your results by date, language, type, and topic on the left side of the search results. Be sure to click the tabs at the top of the search results to find different types of sources, such as Cochrane reviews, protocols, trials, and clinical answers. 

Search result in Cochrane Library for "plantar heel pain" with resources types tabs highlighted at the top of the search results.

Clinical Answers

Your research topic might also have a clinical answer in the Cochrane Library. These sources provide summaries and references to research studies that help answer a clinical research question using the PICO framework (population or problem, intervention, outcomes, and comparison). The clinical answer typically divides comparisons by specific outcomes, such as heel pain or treatment failure. 

If you find a reference to a study you want to read, try searching for the title of the article in OneSearch to see if it's available through one of our library subscriptions. 

Check out this example! For adults (Population) with plantar heel pain (Problem), how do locally injected corticosteroids (Intervention) compare with extracorporeal shock wave therapy (ESWT) (Comparison)?

Cochrane Library clinical answer for "plantar heel pain."