I'm looking for the number of people treated by physical therapists
each year in the United States over the past 5 years (so that I can
identify a trend).

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Clarification of Question by hogayoga-ga on 25 Sep 2006 23:30 PDT

...Also, I will need sources for how you calculated it.

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Request for Question Clarification by hummer-ga on 26 Sep 2006 07:45 PDT

Hi hogayoga,

After researching your question, I believe your only hope for finding
anything close to what you are looking for is to pay for access to a
PT database although I'm not sure you will find the number of people
receiving PT therapy.

How to Find Information in the Physical Therapy Literature
http://www.apta.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Research&CONTENTID=33274&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm

This is an interesting article which you may be able to glean some
information from, but it's not what you are looking for.

Demographics of Physical Therapy Practice: Implications for Education
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3969/is_200410/ai_n9463159/pg_1

Again, interesting but not on target.

EXHIBIT 2 Medicare Home Health Visits, By Discipline And Federal
Fiscal Year, 1997-2001
Mean number of visits per patient
                 1997  1998    1999    2000    2001
Physical therapy  6.0 	5.6 	5.6 	6.2 	6.2
http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/full/22/5/146

Surely the number of people using the services of a physical therapist
will increase as the population ages, as evidenced by this projection
of the future trend of the number of therapists.

United States 	       Employment 	        Percent Change
                         2004 	     2014
Physical therapists 	154,500    211,300 	    + 37 %
http://www.acinet.org/acinet/occ_rep.asp?level=&optstatus=111111111&id=1&nodeid=2&soccode=291123&stfips=53#op3

"Physical therapy  What a difference five years makes! In 1999, the
bottom had dropped out of the physical therapy market: Jobs were being
lost, salaries were down, and unhappy providers were fleeing the
profession. Today, physical therapy is one of the fastest growing
occupations in the country and savvy practitioners can pick and choose
the types and locations of their travel assignments..."
http://www.healthcaretraveler.com/healthcaretraveler/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=105166

Please let me know if this info is useful to you, otherwise perhaps
another researcher will have better luck,
hummer

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Clarification of Question by hogayoga-ga on 26 Sep 2006 09:02 PDT

I think that this is useful...but I really am looking for the total
number of people treated over the past few years...

For the people treated, your're right, don't count the physical
therapists.  What you want to count is the number of applications. 
That should be pretty simple, go to the ultrasound gel suppliers.  95%
of ultrasound treatments are therapeutic.  Ask someone like parker
labs how many treatments there are per year....  they will know the
stat.

Also, that stat is going to be obsolete almost as soon as you get it. 
With the introduction of personal ultrasound units for under $300, the
number of applications is going to grow in a massive way.  Have you
done a google for "Sonic Relief Ultrasound" lately?