physical therapy assistant, physical therapist assistant

Main responsibilities of A Physical Therapy Assistant

The duties of a physical therapy assistant are focused on doing different procedures on physical therapy as well as other tasks under the supervision of a physical therapist. Basically, physical therapy assistants are the ones that help physical therapists to provide the medical needs of patients. The services given by these professionals will be aimed at increasing the mobility, reducing pain as well as avoiding permanent physical handicaps of the patients that are afflicted with particular health conditions or have already been through certain injuries. Most of the time, the patients are those people suffering from heart diseases, arthritis, lumbar pain, head injuries, fractures as well as cerebral palsy.

There are various treatment procedures that may be assigned to a physical therapist assistant, such as massages, exercises, electrical stimulation, traction, paraffin baths, and ultrasound. They’re in charge of recording the reactions of the patients to these therapies and should forward to the physical therapist all of the results of the tests and treatments. These tasks should be performed by physical therapy assistants always with the supervision of professional therapists.

Working Environments and Income

Every physical therapy assistant vary in terms of how long in a day they work and their hours pretty much is determined by where they are employed as well as if they are full time or part time workers only. You will find a lot of physiotherapy centers that are available 24/7, meaning there’s a chance that a PT assistant is going to be asked to work long hours and even on Saturdays and Sundays. In the mean time, the common earnings of physical therapist assistants were stated to be $37,890 in the year 2004, which is based upon data from the government.

Education and Qualifications

Generally, physical therapist assistants receive their associate degree from physical therapist assistant programs available from quite a few accredited physical therapy assistant schools. When it comes to licensure, only some states demand that physical therapy assistants be signed up and licensed to be qualified for practice. However in states in which licensure is mandatory, there are certain instructional specifications which have to be attained to be able to get licensure.

Normally, an authorized physical therapist assistant program will be finished in 4 semesters or 2 years in school. Such courses involve both practical medical training as well as academics. The academic classes consist of psychology, biology, chemistry, physiology, algebra and anatomy. You may also take programs that give lectures on CPR, which will make you qualified to have a CPR certification. With the variety of training programs offered for physical therapy assistants, it is important that you know which ones will be useful for your career in the future.