PT Guide
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Duties of a PTA
Working as a physical therapist assistant (PTA), your job would be to attend to physical therapy procedures that an accredited physical therapist performs. Apart from this, you have other things to look after when it comes to the care and treatment applied for a patient in need.
There are various tasks and methods that a patient should undertake, all these being also part of your responsibilities. These methods include: massage, ultrasound treatment, applying hot and cold compresses when these are part of a patient’s treatment. More than these, a physical therapist assistant can teach patients routines related to rehabilitation exercise.
A physical therapy assistant is also responsible with supervising the facility floor where the instructions for exercising should be correctly followed by the patients under treatment.
There are some cases and various facilities wherein these patients should be taught various walking routine helped by different devices.
In this case, as an assistant, you must show them and help them into this routine. These cases are mostly applicable to patients who try to recover from certain injuries or accidents. Another thing that you must do is to keep the patients’ records and documents in a completely organized manner.
As you must have learned already, these duties can differ from one working place to another. Some of the basic duties and traits fitting this job description are related to “assistance” category including the following:
- Assisting the patients with ambulation such as moving out of the wheelchairs, walking, and so on.
- Knowing how to use the mechanical devices that help with the physical therapy.
- Supporting, directing and encouraging into the rehabilitation routines.
- As a physical therapy assistant you should look into providing also documented assistance to the certified physical therapist.
- There are some other duties related to First Aid & CPR Certification that you should be trained into in order to apply the emergency procedures whenever needed.
- You should as well be aware of the patient’s needs since you are more than a regular assistant, being under the direct supervision of a physical therapist.
- The patients’ charts are again your responsibility knowing how to document them with the specific terminology, while working around patients and being there for their particular situations.
- Make sure that patients’ rights are respected accordingly. These rights are also the ones (depending on the case) related to their confidentiality as well as the right of a patient who wants to accept or refuse a specific treatment. You must keep in mind that these rights should be always counted for treating as such the patients with the due respect.
Many tasks are included in a list of job description for PTAs. Choosing this job implies consideration towards the patients in need providing as well many spiritual rewards for those working in this field. Not to mention that financial rewards are also considered at their tops when it comes to physical therapy assistant.