A new type of intensive physiotherapy is developed for individuals who have undergone spinal surgery. Due to limited hospital resources it can only be given to 3 out of 10 patients. The patients are aged:
15 21 26 32 39 45 52 60 70 82
Explain how a permutation test could be used to investigate whether use of the physiotherapy is related to patient age, (i.e., whether there is a policy to give the treatment to younger as opposed to older groups or vice versa). If the patients aged 15, 26 and 32 have the intensive physiotherapy find the P-value for a two-tailed test of an appropriate null hypothesis. Comment on your findings.