Aquatic exercise for the treatment of hip and knee osteoarthritis.

CAN AQUATIC EXERCISE HELP THIS PATIENT WITH KNEE OSTEOARTHRITIS?: Highlights the findings and application of Cochrane reviews and other evidence pertinent to the practice of physical therapy. The Cochrane library is a respected source of reliable evidence related to health care. Cochrane systematic reviews explore the evidence for and against the effectiveness and appropriateness of interventions-medications, surgery, education, nutrition, exercise-and the evidence for and against the use of diagnostic tests for specific conditions. Cochrane reviews are designed to facilitate the decisions of clinicians, patients, and others in health care by providing a careful review and interpretation of research studies published in the scientific literature. Each article in this PTJ series summarizes a Cochrane review or other scientific evidence resource on a single topic and will present clinical scenarios based on real patients to illustrate how the results of the review can be used to directly inform clinical decisions. This article summarizes the results of the Cochrane review entitled "Aquatic exercise for the treatment of hip and knee osteoarthritis" and presents a clinical scenario based on a real patient, to illustrate how the results of the systematic review can be directly applied in clinical practice.