It is of importance for clinical research to decide the effectiveness of the treatment. Physical therapy also requires more objective declaration of the effectiveness of the treatment. The difference between clinical and basic researches is introduced here. The details and classification of clinical research are also described, referring to the difficulties and requirements. In addition, several research topics of physical therapy for the future are introduced.

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It is the initial step in every clinical research how to select the samples from the population, that is, sampling, and the next important step is to analyze data obtained from those samples. A system sampling is introduced here using a couple of familar cases. Several methods for analyzing data that have appeared in this journal for the last five years with the aim of elucidating peroblems in the application.

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Procedures of the examination are explained, showing the normal distribution as an example. Especially, basic null hypothesis, the ratio of risk, population, normal distribution and its standardization, and unbiased estimate of population variance are explained in detail.

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The analysis of correlation is often used as the statistical method for the research of physical therapy. However, it is sometimes found to be applied inappropriately, and there are some researches that needs more accurate and sufficient discussion substantiated by careful examination and presumption. The necessary conditions for the analysis of correlation are described here; what state of relation is called "correlation", what are correlation coefficient 'r' and regression curve, and what are the rules for obtaining them. For further information, the minimum involution method is also introduced.

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This report describes the essential points for designing an experiment; what kind of experiment should be designed in order to acquire necessary information; how to plan the experiment that requires less size; how to presume the results accurately.

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Among various statistical methods for analyzing the trend of data such as dispersion diagram, histogram, correlation analysis, the regression analysis is described here.

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From the clinical researcher's viewpoint, the author (lecturer?) introduces here the single case method and two representative methods of multivariate analysis; cluster analysis and quantification type II.

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The lecturer reviewed my experience of clinical researches and gave some suggestions on young researchers. Clinical treatment never exists independently without clinical research, and both are products of practice and theory that correlate reciprocally. A number of problems confronting us at the stage of clinical treatment are sometimes beyond our knowledge or technique. It is the starting point of clinical research when we are not able to refer to literatures and ask seniors in order to find the optimum treatment. The results of the research should be discussed, and be practically applied at the clinical stage. Publication of the results will give many physical therapists valuable suggestions and advice, and will 'help the research itself develop through examinations outside and criteria. It is especially important that clinical research should be advanced according to the design.

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The purpose of this study is to clarify the dynamic properties of the trunk muscles of patients with low back pain. The subjects included 92 normal persons with no history of low back pain (47 males and 45 females) serving as controls, and 61 patients with low back pain (33 males and 28 females). We compared the isokinetic trunk strength in the two groups using a Cybex trunk extension-flexion unit (TEF), in which the velocity was varied over five steps, that is, 30, 60, 90, 120, 150deg/sec. The results were summarized as follows : 1)Extensors values in patients were markedly decreased. 2)The reduction of flexors values was lower in the patient group as the velocity increased. 3)The influence of increase of angular velocity was evident in the trunk extensors. 4)Discrepancies of the result between patients and controls were greater for females than for males.

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The program of clinical research for beginners is introduced here. It mainly consists of collection of ideas, preparation of the plan, accumulation of data, data analysis and presentation or publication of the results. It was suggested that the plan leading to certain rules by familiar clinical methods such as Manual Muscle Test(MMT), Brunnstrom's Recovery Stage, and Activities of Daily living Test is more advisable than that requires special equipments.Reference books mainly on ststistics are also listed. The author points out that the final goal of clinicalresearch is to elucidate effectiveness of physical therapy as well as its limitation.

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