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Career Description

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.

What Job Titles Physical Therapists Might Have

• Director of Rehabilitation
• Rehabilitation Services Director
• Physical Therapist (PT)

What Physical Therapists 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.
• Identify and document goals, anticipated progress, and plans for reevaluation.
• Record prognosis, treatment, response, and progress in patient's chart or enter information into computer.
• Obtain patients' informed consent to proposed interventions.
• Test and measure patient's strength, motor development and function, sensory perception, functional capacity, or respiratory or circulatory efficiency and record data.
• Review physician's referral and patient's medical records to help determine diagnosis and physical therapy treatment required.
• Discharge patient from physical therapy when goals or projected outcomes have been attained and provide for appropriate follow-up care or referrals.
• Instruct patient and family in treatment procedures to be continued at home.
• Administer manual exercises, massage, or traction to help relieve pain, increase patient strength, or decrease or prevent deformity or crippling.
• Direct, supervise, assess, and communicate with supportive personnel.
• Inform patients and refer to appropriate practitioners when diagnosis reveals findings outside physical therapy.
• Provide information to the patient about the proposed intervention, its material risks and expected benefits, and any reasonable alternatives.
• Confer with the patient, medical practitioners, or appropriate others to plan, implement, or assess the intervention program.
• Provide educational information about physical therapy or physical therapists, injury prevention, ergonomics, or ways to promote health.
• 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.
• Refer clients to community resources or services.
• Evaluate, fit, or adjust prosthetic or orthotic devices or recommend modification to orthotist.
• Conduct or support research and apply research findings to practice.
• Participate in community or community agency activities or help to formulate public policy.
• Direct group rehabilitation activities.
• Construct, maintain, or repair medical supportive devices.

What Physical Therapists Should Be Good At

• 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).
• Oral Comprehension - The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
• Oral Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking 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 there is a problem.
• 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.
• Written Comprehension - The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
• Written Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
• 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.
• 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).
• Category Flexibility - The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• Visualization - The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.

What Physical Therapists Should Be Interested In

• Social - Social occupations frequently involve working with, communicating with, and teaching people. These occupations often involve helping or providing service to others.
• Investigative - Investigative occupations frequently involve working with ideas, and require an extensive amount of thinking. These occupations can involve searching for facts and figuring out problems mentally.
• Realistic - Realistic occupations frequently involve work activities that include practical, hands-on problems and solutions. They often deal with plants, animals, and real-world materials like wood, tools, and machinery. Many of the occupations require working outside, and do not involve a lot of paperwork or working closely with others.

What Physical Therapists Need to Learn

• Medicine and Dentistry - Knowledge of the information and techniques needed to diagnose and treat human injuries, diseases, and deformities. This includes symptoms, treatment alternatives, drug properties and interactions, and preventive health-care measures.
• Customer and Personal Service - Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.
• Psychology - Knowledge of human behavior and performance; individual differences in ability, personality, and interests; learning and motivation; psychological research methods; and the assessment and treatment of behavioral and affective disorders.
• Therapy and Counseling - Knowledge of principles, methods, and procedures for diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation of physical and mental dysfunctions, and for career counseling and guidance.
• Biology - Knowledge of plant and animal organisms, their tissues, cells, functions, interdependencies, and interactions with each other and the environment.
• English Language - Knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition, and grammar.
• Education and Training - Knowledge of principles and methods for curriculum and training design, teaching and instruction for individuals and groups, and the measurement of training effects.
• Administration and Management - Knowledge of business and management principles involved in strategic planning, resource allocation, human resources modeling, leadership technique, production methods, and coordination of people and resources.