Search Analysis: Spinal Arthritis

We received a handout on all the steps we should take as we search for information. I will refer to this process as Search Analysis for the duration of this blog post. We were performing Search Analysis on a specific topic as follows in our prompt:

I need to understand what causes spinal arthritis and what can be done to help with the pain. I don't want stuff on surgery at all- just the less invasive things like physical therapy and nutrition and non-addictive medicines and like that.

First, I reduced the request to its vital elements. The nouns are "spinal arthritis," "pain," "physical therapy," "nutrition," and "non-addictive medicines." Verbs: "understand"ing the "cause", and "help"ing with pain. Finally, adjectives: "less invasive."

Before I could even start my searches, I wanted to get a cursory knowledge of spinal arthritis. Wikipedia defines arthritis in great detail, but my paraphrased definition is this: spinal arthritis is a form of osteoarthritis, which is the most common form of arthritis. Osteoarthritis is a breakdown of cartilage in joints. Therefore, I knew that my main search terms wouldn't include the word "spinal," since spinal arthritis isn't a term used by medical resources, and is a natural language term. Instead, I would use for the more controlled vocabulary of "arthritis," and if that was too specific, I would use "osteoarthritis."

From there, I went to the UT libraries page and looked for a relevant database. I chose HealthWeb, because Medline seemed like it would be too academic. On the UT libraries page, I did a subject search, choosing "Nursing" as my subject, and Healthweb was listed as one of the recommended resources. On Healthweb's main page, it is a list of subtopics to help you narrow your search. I first looked under "elder care/geriatrics," since Wikipedia said that osteoarthritis is common in the elderly, and found nothing. I went back, and tried "orthopedics," a branch of surgery that treats the musculoskeletal system, which was a better place. In the sidebar, I searched for resources on "arthritis" within the orthopedic subtopic. There, Healthweb gives you a list of websites that are authoritative resources. This website, for instance, gives you the causes and some various treatments for arthritis that are non-invasive and non-surgical. It has references also for other sources, and is published by Johns Hopkins University. Another resource, Arthritis.org, gives lots of ideas on how to treat the pain in a non-invasive manner, and gives detailed information on what they consider the best treatment: physical activity.

After this, I checked my two sources against the initial request of the patron. Both of my resources give both layman's but authoritative explanations of what causes arthritis, and both give lots of information on treating its pain, focusing on lots of information of non-invasive treatments like nutrition, dietary supplements, and physical therapy or exercise plans.