Kinesiology 301

KINS 301 (Principles of Therapeutic Interventions)

Background:

I took this course fall semester of my junior year. This was the first and only course that I chose to enhance. The enhancement was that I presented my CAT (critically appraised topic) at Longwood’s Fall 2021 Showcase for Research and Inquiry. In this class, I had to balance learning content related to therapeutic interventions and learning how to write a CAT.

Cats vs CATs:

Cats are cute, small domestic animals with fur and pointed ears that many people have as a companion… CATs are critically appraised topics that require serious research and writing skills.

This class dealt with CATs. I chose to conduct my research on SLAP (superior labrum anterior to posterior) tears in athletes. I wanted to challenge myself, so I picked a topic that I had never heard of before. Little did I know that my choice would come back to bite me. I regretted not choosing a topic that I knew would have plenty of research on it (like ACL tears). I spent so many hours on several databases combing through articles to see if they matched the topic and outcome I was looking for. I even debated changing my topic and went to my professor with several questions about it. During my article search, I actually put the skills the librarians taught to use! I learned how helpful boolean operators can be and how to properly use the database filters (year range, open or closed access, type of article, etc.). Once I finally was over the hump of finding articles surrounding my topic, I was met with yet another hump of writing the actual CAT. I had never heard of a CAT before let alone how to write one (apparently it is very common in the field of kinesiology). I eventually got into the flow of things and divided up the work over several days. When I finally finished it, I celebrated with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s. Since I had chosen to enhance this course I needed to develop my poster and present it at the research showcase. Thankfully, my professor guided me with the formatting of my poster so this part was fairly easy compared to the other processes! After spending so many hours on databases and skimming through hundreds of articles, I can say that my research skills are up to par.

Below is the CAT that I talked about!

This CAT compared the difference between conservative treatment and surgery on return to play outcomes in athletes who had SLAP tears. It gives a synopsis of the background information, details about the search process, a rating for the level of evidence presented, and a table that outlined the articles included.