Physical Therapist Assess, plan, organize, and participate in rehabilitative programs that improve mobility, relieve pain, increase strength, and improve or correct disabling conditions resulting from disease or injury.
Physical Therapist is Also Know as
In different settings, Physical Therapist is titled as
- Acute Care PT (Acute Care Physical Therapist)
- Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT)
- Home Care Physical Therapist (Home Care PT)
- Inpatient Physical Therapist (Inpatient PT)
- Outpatient Physical Therapist (Outpatient PT)
- Pediatric Physical Therapist (Pediatric PT)
- Registered Physical Therapist (RPT)
- Therapist
Education and Training of Physical Therapist
Physical Therapist is categorized in Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed
Experience Required for Physical Therapist
Extensive skill, knowledge, and experience are needed for these occupations. Many require more than five years of experience. For example, surgeons must complete four years of college and an additional five to seven years of specialized medical training to be able to do their job.
Education Required for Physical Therapist
Most of these occupations require graduate school. For example, they may require a master's degree, and some require a Ph.D., M.D., or J.D. (law degree).
Degrees Related to Physical Therapist
- Bachelor in Physical Therapy/Therapist
- Associate Degree Courses in Physical Therapy/Therapist
- Masters Degree Courses in Physical Therapy/Therapist
- Bachelor in Kinesiotherapy/Kinesiotherapist
- Associate Degree Courses in Kinesiotherapy/Kinesiotherapist
- Masters Degree Courses in Kinesiotherapy/Kinesiotherapist
Training Required for Physical Therapist
Employees may need some on-the-job training, but most of these occupations assume that the person will already have the required skills, knowledge, work-related experience, and/or training.
Related Ocuupations
Some Ocuupations related to Physical Therapist in different industries are
- Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Physicians
- Emergency Medicine Physicians
- Occupational Therapists
- Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nurses
- Clinical Nurse Specialists
- Pediatric Surgeons
- Acute Care Nurses
- Orthopedic Surgeons, Except Pediatric
- Nurse Practitioners
- Recreational Therapists
- Physical Therapist Assistants
- Physical Therapist Aides
- Respiratory Therapists
- Occupational Therapy Assistants
- Occupational Therapy Aides
- Family Medicine Physicians
- Psychiatric Technicians
- Radiation Therapists
- Cardiologists
- Psychiatrists
What Do Physical Therapist do?
- Plan, prepare, or carry out individually designed programs of physical treatment to maintain, improve, or restore physical functioning, alleviate pain, or prevent physical dysfunction in patients.
- Perform and document an initial exam, evaluating data to identify problems and determine a diagnosis prior to intervention.
- Evaluate effects of treatment at various stages and adjust treatments to achieve maximum benefit.
- Administer manual exercises, massage, or traction to help relieve pain, increase patient strength, or decrease or prevent deformity or crippling.
- Instruct patient and family in treatment procedures to be continued at home.
- Confer with the patient, medical practitioners, or appropriate others to plan, implement, or assess the intervention program.
- Review physician's referral and patient's medical records to help determine diagnosis and physical therapy treatment required.
- Record prognosis, treatment, response, and progress in patient's chart or enter information into computer.
- Obtain patients' informed consent to proposed interventions.
- Discharge patient from physical therapy when goals or projected outcomes have been attained and provide for appropriate follow-up care or referrals.
- Test and measure patient's strength, motor development and function, sensory perception, functional capacity, or respiratory or circulatory efficiency and record data.
- Identify and document goals, anticipated progress, and plans for reevaluation.
- Provide information to the patient about the proposed intervention, its material risks and expected benefits, and any reasonable alternatives.
- Direct, supervise, assess, and communicate with supportive personnel.
- Administer treatment involving application of physical agents, using equipment, moist packs, ultraviolet or infrared lamps, or ultrasound machines.
- Teach physical therapy students or those in other health professions.
- Evaluate, fit, or adjust prosthetic or orthotic devices or recommend modification to orthotist.
- Provide educational information about physical therapy or physical therapists, injury prevention, ergonomics, or ways to promote health.
- Refer clients to community resources or services.
- Conduct or support research and apply research findings to practice.
- Participate in community or community agency activities or help to formulate public policy.
- Construct, maintain, or repair medical supportive devices.
- Direct group rehabilitation activities.
- Inform patients and refer to appropriate practitioners when diagnosis reveals findings outside physical therapy.
Qualities of Good Physical Therapist
- Written Comprehension: The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
- Oral Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
- Oral Comprehension: The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
- Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
- Problem Sensitivity: The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
- Deductive Reasoning: The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
- Inductive Reasoning: The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
- Information Ordering: The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
- Speech Clarity: The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
- Speech Recognition: The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
- Fluency of Ideas: The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
- Near Vision: The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
- Arm-Hand Steadiness: The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.
- Static Strength: The ability to exert maximum muscle force to lift, push, pull, or carry objects.
- Trunk Strength: The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without "giving out" or fatiguing.
- Finger Dexterity: The ability to make precisely coordinated movements of the fingers of one or both hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble very small objects.
- Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
- Manual Dexterity: The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.
- Originality: The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
- Far Vision: The ability to see details at a distance.
- Category Flexibility: The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
- Visualization: The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
- Perceptual Speed: The ability to quickly and accurately compare similarities and differences among sets of letters, numbers, objects, pictures, or patterns. The things to be compared may be presented at the same time or one after the other. This ability also includes comparing a presented object with a remembered object.
- Time Sharing: The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information (such as speech, sounds, touch, or other sources).
- Flexibility of Closure: The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
- Multilimb Coordination: The ability to coordinate two or more limbs (for example, two arms, two legs, or one leg and one arm) while sitting, standing, or lying down. It does not involve performing the activities while the whole body is in motion.
- Extent Flexibility: The ability to bend, stretch, twist, or reach with your body, arms, and/or legs.
- Memorization: The ability to remember information such as words, numbers, pictures, and procedures.
- Number Facility: The ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.
- Dynamic Strength: The ability to exert muscle force repeatedly or continuously over time. This involves muscular endurance and resistance to muscle fatigue.
- Speed of Closure: The ability to quickly make sense of, combine, and organize information into meaningful patterns.
- Control Precision: The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
- Mathematical Reasoning: The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
- Stamina: The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
- Gross Body Coordination: The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and torso together when the whole body is in motion.
- Visual Color Discrimination: The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
- Wrist-Finger Speed: The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
- Gross Body Equilibrium: The ability to keep or regain your body balance or stay upright when in an unstable position.
- Auditory Attention: The ability to focus on a single source of sound in the presence of other distracting sounds.
- Reaction Time: The ability to quickly respond (with the hand, finger, or foot) to a signal (sound, light, picture) when it appears.
- Rate Control: The ability to time your movements or the movement of a piece of equipment in anticipation of changes in the speed and/or direction of a moving object or scene.
- Hearing Sensitivity: The ability to detect or tell the differences between sounds that vary in pitch and loudness.
- Depth Perception: The ability to judge which of several objects is closer or farther away from you, or to judge the distance between you and an object.
- Speed of Limb Movement: The ability to quickly move the arms and legs.
- Response Orientation: The ability to choose quickly between two or more movements in response to two or more different signals (lights, sounds, pictures). It includes the speed with which the correct response is started with the hand, foot, or other body part.
- Explosive Strength: The ability to use short bursts of muscle force to propel oneself (as in jumping or sprinting), or to throw an object.
- Spatial Orientation: The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.
- Peripheral Vision: The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one's side when the eyes are looking ahead.
- Night Vision: The ability to see under low-light conditions.
- Glare Sensitivity: The ability to see objects in the presence of a glare or bright lighting.
- Sound Localization: The ability to tell the direction from which a sound originated.
- Dynamic Flexibility: The ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, arms, and/or legs.
Tools Used by Physical Therapist
- Above-the-knee prosthetics
- Adjusting tables
- Aquacisers
- Arm prosthetics
- Axial-resistance shoulder wheels
- Babinski hammers
- Balance beams
- Balance boards
- Below-the-knee prosthetics
- Biofeedback units
- Biomechanical ankle platform system BAPS systems
- Blood pressure cuffs
- Bolsters/wedges
- Canes
- Cervical pivots
- Compression garments
- Computerized dynamic posturography (CDP) balance test systems
- Continuous passive motion CPM machines
- Crutches
- Cryotherapy equipment
- Diathermy equipment
- Digital cameras
- Digital inclinometer range of motion measurement instruments
- Digital video cameras
- Digital video equipment
- Electromyographs EMG
- Electronic blood pressure units
- Electronic manual muscle testers
- Exercise balls
- Exercise bicycles
- Fitness machines
- Fluidotherapy equipment
- Force sensors
- Functional electrical stimulation FES equipment
- Gait belts
- Goniometers or arthrometers
- Heart rate monitors
- High-voltage galvanic stimulation machines
- Hospital roto beds
- Hoyer lifts
- Hydraulic hand dynamometers
- Hydrocollator heating units
- Ice packs
- Infrared lamps
- Interferential electrical stimulation machines
- Inversion physical therapy tables
- Iontophoresis equipment
- Isokinetic lower body testing/rehabilitation equipment
- Isokinetic upper body testing/rehabilitation equipment
- Isotonic exercise equipment
- Knee braces
- Laptop computers
- Laser printers
- Low volt muscle stimulators
- Lumbar pivots
- Massagers
- Mechanical stethoscopes
- Moist hot packs
- Multiaxial exercise equipment
- Muscle strength dynamometers
- Muscle testing equipment
- Neck braces
- Neurological hammers
- Neuromuscular stimulation equipment
- Occipivots
- Orthotics
- Otoscopes
- Paraffin baths
- Parallel bars
- Pelvic traction equipment
- Percussion hammers
- Personal computers
- Phonopheresis equipment
- Portable cardiac monitors
- Powder boards
- Pulley exercise systems
- Reachers
- Rebounders
- Resistive exercise bands
- Resistive tubing
- Rowing machines
- Sacro-illiac joint lumbar corsets
- Shoulder finger ladders
- Shoulder wheels
- Sliding boards
- Standing tables
- Stepper exercisers
- Surface electromyography equipment
- Swiss exercise balls
- Therapeutic treadmill exercisers
- Thoracic pivots
- Tilt tables
- Total lift chairs
- Traction and mobilization physical therapy tables
- Traction belts
- Traction equipment
- Training stairs
- Transcutaneous electric nerve stimulation TENS equipment
- Ultrasound machines
- Ultraviolet UV lamps
- Upper body ergometers
- Walkers
- Walking braces
- Wall pulleys
- Weights
- Wheelchairs
- Whirlpool therapy baths
Technology Skills required for Physical Therapist
- Advantage Software Physical Therapy Advantage
- Biometrics video game software
- Cedaron Dexter Evaluation & Impairment Rating
- Clinicient Insight
- eClinicalWorks EHR software
- Exercise routine creation software
- Hands On Technology TheraWriter.PT
- Medical condition coding software
- Medical procedure coding software
- MediGraph
- MEDITECH software
- Microsoft Excel
- Microsoft Office software
- Microsoft Outlook
- Microsoft Word
- Patient charting software
- Prognosis Innovation Healthcare ChartAccess
- Recordkeeping software
- Rehab Documentation Company ReDoc Suite
- SpectraSoft AppointmentsCS