Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation publishes original articles that report on important trends and developments in physical medicine and rehabilitation and in the more interdisciplinary field of rehabilitation. Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation brings readers authoritative information on the therapeutic utilization of physical and pharmaceutical agents in providing comprehensive care for persons with disabilities and chronically ill individuals. Archives began publication in 1920, publishes monthly, and is the official journal of the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine. Its papers are cited more often than any other rehabilitation journal.

• Manuscript Submission and Review Process
• Publication Categories
• Manuscript Preparation
• Manuscript Submission

Disclosure Statements & Copyright Forms (note: select the appropriate version below)

• Disclosure Statement & Copyright Form for New Submissions

• Disclosure Statement & Copyright Form for Revised Manuscripts

• ICMJE Form for Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest

Additional Links

• Glossary of Methodologic Terms

• Checklist

• Reference Format

• Reporting Guidelines

Manuscript Submission and Review Process

Review Process

All submissions will be screened by editors to determine suitability for review. Manuscripts approved for review will be evaluated by at least 1 recognized expert in the particular subject matter. Biostatistical review may be obtained. Peer reviewers' assessments are referred to a member of the Editorial Board, who may also critique the manuscript. The Editorial Board Member will then make a decision and communicate with the corresponding author via e-mail. Decisions are usually communicated no more than 60 days after the manuscript has been approved for peer review. All reviews are conducted in a double-blind fashion.

Letters to the editors and editorials are usually evaluated by an editorial committee; external review may be sought.

Published annually without peer review are the ACRM presidential address, and the John Stanley Coulter Lecture. The Editorial Board does not peer review the published abstracts of posters, platform presentations of scientific papers, and audiovisual materials presented at the ACRM annual meeting. Archives also publishes the official documents of ACRM. These documents are not peer reviewed by Archives and include position papers and other materials approved by the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine.

Original Submissions

Manuscripts are submitted through the journal's online system (External link http://ees.elsevier.com/archives-pmr/). The review process will not begin until authors have complied completely with the submission requirements. Compliance includes submission of separate documents in the following order: 1) cover letter; 2) title page, including acknowledgments; 3) structured or standard abstract, keywords, list of abbreviations, body of the text, references, suppliers' list, figure legends; 4) figures; 5) tables; 6) appendices; 7) supplementary files; 8) checklist; 9) disclosure forms (ICMJE Form for Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest and the Archives Authorship Form & Copyright Assignment for Provisional Disclosure at Original Submission).

Revisions When submitting your revised manuscript, at the request of the Editorial Board, please include a document, separate from your cover letter, itemizing your response to each of the suggested revisions and any other changes you have made. Use consecutive line numbering in the text and cite line numbers for each change. In addition, highlight each change in the revised manuscript. You will upload this document in the file upload step as the "Detailed Response to Reviewers." This file should be blinded.

If revisions are not received within the time specified in the decision e-mail, the manuscript file will be closed. A revision received after a file has been closed will be handled as a new submission. An extension beyond the deadline may be granted at the Editorial Board's discretion, but only in extenuating circumstances, given the editors' commitment to prompt publication.

Submission of a revised manuscript includes submission of separate documents in the following order: 1) cover letter; 2) title page, including acknowledgments; 3) the main text with highlighted changes, including a structured or standard abstract, keywords, list of abbreviations, body of the text, references, suppliers' list, figure legends; 4) a clean copy of the main text with no highlighted changes, including a structured or standard abstract, keywords, list of abbreviations, body of the text, references, suppliers' list, figure legends; 5) figures; 6) tables; 7) appendices; 8) supplementary files; 9) checklist; 10) disclosure forms from each author (ICMJE Form for Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest and the Archives Authorship Form & Copyright Assignment Disclosure for Submission of a Revised Paper. Both forms, individually signed by each author, must be uploaded with revised papers that received a decision of "Accept Pending Revisions").

Accepted Manuscripts

Beginning February 1, 2012, all accepted articles will be posted online within 5 business days of release to production. This posted version will be a PDF of the author's accepted files, will be submitted to PubMed, and will be fully citable. Supplementary material, such as raw data, videos, etc., will not be included. Supplementary materials will be included when the article is typeset and published on the Articles in Press platform or in the monthly print/online issue.

Manuscripts accepted for publication are subject to editing during the production process. Journal style is based on the AMA Manual of Style. The manuscript will be typeset and the designated corresponding author will receive page proofs for approval. Proofs must be returned to Elsevier by the corresponding author within 48 hours of receipt, as outlined in the e-mail instructions accompanying the proofs.

All accepted manuscripts become the permanent property of Archives and may not be published elsewhere without written permission from the publisher.

Reprints

Reprint order forms are provided to authors by e-mail in a downloadable PDF format. The reprint form is sent with an e-mail acknowledgment to the author from Elsevier confirming receipt of the accepted manuscript. Reprint orders should be submitted within 15 days to ensure delivery within 6 weeks after publication. Archives does not provide complimentary reprints.

Appeal Process

Authors may appeal a decision to the Editor-in-Chief of Archives. This appeal must: (1) be submitted in writing, (2) rebut the negative decision, and (3) be submitted within 30 days after the decision is rendered. Consideration of the appeal will be based on the appeal letter and the version of the manuscript that was peer reviewed. The Editor-in-Chief will assign the appeal to an Editorial Board member for review. The decision from the appeal is final.

Publication Categories

Articles: Present new and important basic and clinical information, extend existing studies, or provide a new approach to a traditional subject. Manuscripts should be limited to 3000 words of text. Figures, tables, and references should be limited to the number needed to clarify, amplify, or document the text.

Clinical Notes: Report an observation that is interesting, new, or of sufficient import to warrant attention. Manuscripts should be limited to 3000 words of text; an extensive review of the literature is not necessary; and references should be limited. One or 2 figures and/or tables usually suffice to supplement the text.

Brief Reports: Provide preliminary communications of new data, research methods, brief case studies of interest, new ideas, and techniques. Manuscripts should be limited to 1500 words of text (or 1200 words plus 1-2 figs or tables), and no more than 10 references.

Commentaries: Focus on issues in physical medicine and rehabilitation. Manuscripts should be limited to 2000 words of text. The Editorial Board reserves the right to ensure that the author is qualified, through education and professional experience, to write knowledgeably and appropriately about a particular subject before accepting a Commentary for publication. The Editorial Board will choose the author(s) for invited commentaries and the author(s)' identity will be anonymous until publication. Authors of the subject article may submit a response for a subsequent issue.

Review Articles (Meta-Analyses): The Editorial Board invites proposals for state-of-the-art review articles. Manuscripts should be limited to 5000 words of text, exclusive of references. Authors must submit financial disclosures at the time of submission. The Archives strongly prefers systematic reviews of the literature. It is suggested, but not required, that authors submit their review article topics to the Managing Editor (ArchivesMail@archives.acrm.org) for approval prior to submission.

Clinical Management Reviews: Manuscripts should help rehabilitation practitioners solve common clinical problems and should focus on clinical elements commonly seen in rehabilitation practice; they should not contain research data from previously unreported research, speculation, or extensively review the literature. Manuscripts should be limited to 3000 words, not more than 30 references, and a maximum of 2 tables and 4 figures. See instructions for submission below.

Clinical Implications of Basic Research: Manuscripts should discuss the clinical implications of basic research in physical medicine and rehabilitation and develop new concepts that facilitate the understanding and treatment of disease processes that may impact rehabilitation professionals' practice. Manuscripts should be limited to 4000 words, exclusive of references. Technical concepts must be explained succinctly for the technically uninformed. See instructions for submission below.

Instructions for submitting review articles: The Archives recommends, but does not insist, that authors submit a proposal prior to submitting a systematic review.

Special Communications: Provide information or an objective analysis of issues in physical medicine and rehabilitation that does not qualify as a research or clinical paper or commentary. Manuscripts are peer reviewed and should be limited to 5000 words of text, exclusive of references.

Editorials: Editorials published in Archives may only be written by the elected officers of ACRM, or by members of the Editorial Board. Prior to publication, all editorials are approved by the Editorial Board's Executive Committee. Editorials do not represent the opinions or positions of ACRM or the Editorial Board. Editorials should be limited to 1000 words of text.

Letters to The Editor: Letters are published at the discretion of the Editorial Board and should be directly related to the published article on which it comments. Letters may not reference unpublished studies or reference "in press" studies that are not publicly available. The editorial staff reserves the right to solicit a response from the authors of the cited paper as well as condense and edit without consulting the writer. Letters must be limited to roughly 500 words of text, 1 table, and no more than 5 references.

MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION

Authors should prepare manuscripts according to the "Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals,1" as developed by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. The Requirements are available at External link http://www.icmje.org.

Document Formatting

Manuscripts must be double-spaced throughout, including the title page, abstract, text, acknowledgments, references, individual tables, and legends. Use only standard 12-point type and spacing. Use unjustified, flush-left margins. Number the pages of the text consecutively. Put the page number in the upper or lower right-hand corner of each page. Number each line on each page of the text to facilitate peer review.

Authors should format manuscripts for specific attributes such as italics, superscripts/subscripts, and Greek letters. The coding scheme for each such element must be consistent throughout the file.

Text Style:
  • Enter only 1 space between words and sentences.
  • Leave 1 blank line between paragraphs
  • Leave 2 blank lines between headings and text.

Do not use indenting or margin-setting features.

Title Page Document

These elements are in the following sequence and are double-spaced.
  • Running head of no more than 40 character spaces.
  • Title.
  • Author(s) full name(s) and highest academic degree(s).
  • The name(s) of the institution(s), section(s), division(s), and department(s) where the study was performed are provided and the institutional affiliation(s) of the author(s) at the time of the study are indicated. An asterisk after an author's name and a footnote may indicate a change in affiliation.
  • " Acknowledgment of any presentation of this material, to whom, when, and where.
  • Acknowledgment of financial support, including grant numbers.
  • Any other needed acknowledgments.
  • Requisite financial disclosure as selected from the Disclosure Statements & Copyright Assignment form and an explanation of any conflicts of interest.
  • Name, address, business and home telephone numbers, and e-mail address of corresponding author and the author from whom reprints can be obtained.
  • If reprints are not available, this is stated on the title page.
  • Clinical trial registration number, if applicable.

Acknowledgments

One or more statements should specify: (1) contributions that do not justify authorship (ie, third-party statistical analysis, writing/editing); and (2) acknowledgments of technical help.

Persons who have contributed intellectually to the manuscript but whose contributions do not justify authorship must be named and their function or contribution described, eg, "scientific adviser," "critical review of study proposal," "data collection," or "participation in clinical trial." Such persons must give permission to be named. Authors are responsible for obtaining written permission from persons acknowledged by name because readers may infer their endorsement of the data and conclusions.

Clerical, administrative, and laboratory staff should not be acknowledged, unless they have contributed significantly to the research, writing, or intellectual quality of the article.

Cover Letter Document
  • The cover letter should include essential information, including who the corresponding author will be and a statement signed by the corresponding author that written permission has been obtained from all persons named in the Acknowledgments and patient consent forms have been collected, if needed.

Text Document
  • Archives uses a double-blind peer-review process. The blinded submission should be submitted in a word document and should begin with a title followed by the abstract, keywords, list of abbreviations, body of the text, references, figure legends, and suppliers' list.
  • This document is consecutively line numbered.
  • If this is a randomized controlled trial, provide the CONSORT flow diagram (External link http://www.consort-statement.org/Downloads/flowchart.doc).
  • Statement is included in the body of the manuscript that human experimentation has been approved by the local institutional review board or conforms to Helsinki Declaration, as stated in the section Manuscript Preparation, Methods.
  • Guidelines for the care/use of nonhuman animals or other species, approved by the institution, have been followed as indicated in the Methods. The species is named in the title, abstract, and Methods section.
  • It is recommended that a professional editor or a colleague fluent in English edit the manuscript before submission for authors whose first language is not English.
  • The body of the manuscript includes the Introduction (no heading needed), Methods, Results, Discussion, Study Limitations (subheading), and Conclusions headings. Longer articles may need other subsection headings to clarify their content, especially the Results and Discussion sections. Clinical Notes articles include the headings: Case Description, Discussion, and Conclusions. Clinical Management Reviews articles include the headings: Summary of Pertinent Research, Therapeutic Approach, and Conclusions. Other types of articles such as Commentaries and Special Communications do not require this format.
  • Footnotes other than for references are not allowed in the manuscript body.

Abstract

For Articles reporting original data (Article; Brief Reports; Prosthetics, Orthotics, Devices; Clinical Management Reviews; Clinical Implications of Basic Research) and Review Articles (including Meta-Analyses), see the Instructions for Structured Abstracts. For other manuscripts (eg, Clinical Notes, Commentaries, Special Communications), include a conventional, unstructured abstract of no more than 250 words.

Key Words

Accompanying all abstracts, authors must provide 3 to 5 Key Words. Key words must be selected from the US National Library of Medicine's (NLM) Medical Subject Headings, which is available at External link http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/MBrowser.html.

Abbreviations

Archives' editorial policy is to minimize the use of abbreviations. Fewer abbreviations make it easier for the multidisciplinary readership to follow the text. Authors should include a list of abbreviations in their manuscript file following the abstract (just above introduction). Archives uses only standard abbreviations with Davis's and Dorland's as our guides. Abbreviations that are used only in tables, appendices, or figures are not included in the list and should be defined in the table, appendix, or figure note; however, abbreviations that are in the list need not be re-defined in a table footnote or legend. All abbreviations must be defined on first mention in the body of the manuscript. The abbreviations SD (standard deviation) and SE (standard error) require no definition in Archives.

Headings

Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusions. Articles should include the subsection heading Study Limitations at the end of the Discussion section. Longer articles may need other subsection headings to clarify their content, especially the Results and Discussion sections.

Clinical Notes headings: Case Description, Discussion, and Conclusions.

Clinical Management Reviews headings: Summary of Pertinent Research, Therapeutic Approach, and Conclusions.

Other types of articles such as Commentaries and Special Communications do not require this format.

Introduction

State the purpose of the article. Summarize the rationale for the study or observation. Give only pertinent references, and do not review the subject extensively. Do not include data or conclusions from the work being reported. Do not include a heading for this section.

Trade Names

No trade names (i.e., trademarked of non-generic names of commercially available products/services) are permitted prior to the Methods section, including in the article title or abstract.

Methods

Describe the selection of the observational or experimental subjects (patients or experimental animals, including controls) clearly. Discuss eligibility of experimental subjects. Give details about randomization. Describe the methods for any blinding of observations. Identify the methods, equipment and materials, and procedures in sufficient detail to allow others to reproduce the results.
Reference established methods, including statistical methods (see below); provide very brief descriptions for methods that have been published but are not well known; describe new or substantially modified methods, give reasons for using them, and evaluate their limitations. Identify precisely all drugs and chemicals used, including generic name(s), dose(s), and route(s) of administration.

While there may be occasional exceptions, the Archives is committed to the need for clinical trial reports to be accompanied by adequate periods of follow-up. A lack of sufficient follow-up may be detrimental to a paper's acceptance.

When reporting work with human subjects, indicate whether the procedures followed protocol and accord with the ethical standards of the responsible institutional review board, ethics committee or with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 1983, as appropriate for the country where the research took place.2

Do not use patients' names, initials, or hospital numbers, especially in any illustrative material. When reporting experiments on animals, indicate whether the procedures followed accord with the institution's committee on animal experimentation or with the National Research Council's guide on the care and use of laboratory animals. Archives may require authors to verify the above procedures.

Describe statistical methods in enough detail to enable knowledgeable readers with access to the original data to verify the reported results. When possible, quantify findings and present them with appropriate indicators of measurement error or uncertainty (eg, confidence intervals [CIs]). Avoid sole reliance on statistical hypothesis testing, such as P values, which fails to convey important quantitative information.

Researchers should report and identify the specific statistical test used and the obtained statistical value. Researchers should supplement the results of any statistical value. Researchers should supplement the results of any statistical significance test with the use of effect size values or CIs. Measures of effect size or CIs should be routinely included in quantitative clinical trials reported in rehabilitation research. The statistical power values and the corresponding type II error probability should always be reported for statistically nonsignificant results.

The investigator should ensure that there is sufficient power to detect, as statistically significant, a clinically meaningful treatment effect of an a priori specified size.3 References for study design and statistical methods should be to standard works (with pages stated) rather than to papers in which designs or methods were originally reported.

Specify any general use computer programs used. Avoid nontechnical uses of technical terms in statistics, such as "random" (which implies a randomizing device), "normal," "significant," "correlation," or "sample." Define statistical terms, abbreviations, and symbols.

When submitting manuscripts on randomized controlled trials (RCTs), authors must include the CONSORT (Consolidated Standards for Reporting Trials) flow diagram. See the Reporting Guidelines.

Results

When data are summarized in the Results section, specify the statistical methods used to analyze them. Describe the success of any blinding of observations. Report treatment complications. Give numbers of observations. Report losses to observation (ie, dropouts from a clinical trial). Present results in logical sequence in the text, tables, and illustrations. Restrict tables and figures to those needed to explain arguments and to assess their support. Use graphs as an alternative to tables with many entries; do not duplicate data in graphs and tables. Do not repeat in the text all the data in the tables, illustrations, or both; emphasize or summarize only important observations.

While there may be occasional exceptions, the Archives is committed to the need for clinical trial reports to be accompanied by adequate periods of follow-up. A lack of sufficient follow-up may be detrimental to a paper's acceptance.

Units of Measurement

Metric units are required. Blood pressures in millimeters of mercury (mmHg) and all hematologic and clinical chemistry measurements using the International System of Units (SI).

Discussion

Emphasize the new and important aspects of the study and the conclusions that follow from them. Do not repeat in detail data or other material given in the Introduction or the Results section. Include in the Discussion section the implications of the findings and their limitations, including implications for future research. Authors should address the issue of effect magnitude, in terms of both the statistics reported and the implications of the research. Relate the observations to other relevant studies.

Study Limitations: Include the subsection, Study Limitations, to discuss the limitations of the study.

Conclusions: Link the conclusions with the study's goals but avoid unqualified statements not supported by the data. Avoid claiming priority and alluding to work that is incomplete. State new hypotheses when warranted, but clearly label them as such. Recommendations, when appropriate, may be included.

References

References in manuscripts accepted by Archives shall include only material that is retrievable through standard literature searches. Number references consecutively in the order in which they first appear in the text. Identify references in text, tables, and legends by superscript Arabic numerals. References cited only in tables or in legends to figures should be numbered in accordance with a sequence established by the first identification in the text of the particular table or figure.

Use the style of the examples below, which are based on the formats used by the NLM in MEDLINE. The titles of journals should be abbreviated according to the style used in MEDLINE. Consult List of Serials Indexed for Online Users, which is available from the NLM at External link http://www.nlm.nih.gov/tsd/serials/lsiou.html.

Try to avoid using abstracts as references; "unpublished observations" and "personal communications" may not be used as references, although references to written, not oral, communications may be inserted (in parentheses) in the text. Avoid "personal communication" unless it provides essential information not available from a public source. In this case, cite the name of the person and date of communication in parentheses in the text. For scientific articles, authors should obtain written permission and confirmation of accuracy from the source of personal communication.

Include among the references those papers accepted but not yet published; designate the journal and add "In press." Authors must obtain written permission to cite such papers as well as verification that they have been accepted for publication. Editors will request from the author(s) a copy of the letter from the journal accepting the "in press" article if the manuscript in which it is cited is accepted by Archives. Information from manuscripts submitted but not yet accepted should be cited in the text as "(unpublished observations)" with written permission from the source.

The references must be verified by the author(s) against the original documents. List all authors and/or editors for each reference. Do not insert "et al."

Click here for examples of correct reference formats.

Suppliers

After the References section, provide a Suppliers list with contact information (names and complete mailing addresses) for manufacturers of devices and other non-drug products used directly in a study (ie, do not provide such information for products not directly used in your research but mentioned in studies you cite). Identify equipment and/or materials in text, tables, and legends by superscript lower case letters. List suppliers consecutively in the order they are mentioned in the text.

Manufacturer names and locations should not be listed in the text where the product is introduced. Do not list Suppliers in the References list. Do not list drug manufacturers in the Suppliers list.

Figure Legends
  • A list of figure legends should be provided after the reference list and suppliers' list, listing each figure in order by number.
  • Legends/captions should not be embedded in the figure files themselves.

Figures, Images, and Photographs Documents

Preferred file formats are TIFF, EPS, JPEG, and PDF

300 dpi is minimum resolution to achieve high quality images. Typical desired resolutions are 300 dpi for black and white and color figures; 500 dpi for combination art (combined photo with line art); and 1,000 dpi for line art.

Figures should be numbered consecutively in the order they are first cited in the text. If a figure has been published, acknowledge the original source and submit written permission from the copyright holder to reproduce the material. Permission is required, irrespective of authorship or publisher, except for documents in the public domain.

Letters, numbers, and symbols should be clear and even throughout, and of sufficient size that when reduced for publication each item will still be legible. Titles and detailed explanations belong in the legends for figures, not on the figures themselves.

Consistency in size within the article is strongly preferred. Any special instructions regarding sizing should be clearly noted.

Photomicrographs must have internal scale markers. Symbols, arrows, or letters used in the photomicrographs should contrast with the background.

If photographs of persons are used, either the subjects must not be identifiable or the author must obtain and archive permission to publish the pictures and attest that permission has been granted in the cover letter that accompanies the manuscript submission.

Figures should be numbered consecutively in the order they are first cited in the text. If a figure has been published, acknowledge the original source in the reference list and in the legend and submit written permission from the copyright holder to reproduce the material. Permission is required, irrespective of authorship or publisher, except for documents in the public domain.

The Editorial Board reserves the right to determine which figures are appropriate for publication. Color figures (minimum 300dpi) will be published without charge when color reproduction is essential to understanding of the material presented. There is no charge for publication of black and white illustrations.

Tables Documents

Submit each table as a separate file. Number tables consecutively in the order of their first citation in the text and supply a brief title for each. Give each column a short or abbreviated heading. Place explanatory matter in footnotes, not in the heading. Explain in footnotes all nonstandard abbreviations that are used in each table. For footnotes, use the following symbols, in this sequence: *,†, ‡, §, ||, ¶, #, **, ††, ‡‡,...

Identify statistical measures of variations such as standard deviation and standard error of the mean. Do not use internal horizontal and vertical rules. Be sure that each table is cited in the text in order. Using too many tables in relation to the length of the text may produce typesetting difficulties.

Data from another published or unpublished source may only be used with permission and must be acknowledged fully. It is the author's responsibility to obtain such permission.

Appendices Documents

An appendix provides data in a format that does not contain an x-y axis that defines the rows and columns, for instance, a listing of the components of a test or evaluative instrument is an appendix, not a table. Appendices are to be called out sequentially in the text and placement will be immediately before the References section. Submit each in a separate file with a clear Appendix label.

References

1. International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals. 2009. Available at: External link http://www.icmje.org. Accessed July 19, 2010.

2. 41st World Medical Assembly. Declaration of Helsinki: recommendations guiding physicians in biomedical research involving human subjects. Bull Pan Am Health Organ 1990;24:606-9.

3. Ottenbacher KJ. Why rehabilitation research does not work (as well as we think it should). Arch Phys Med Rehabil 1995;76:606-9.



Updated May 2012