Physical Therapists

What Does a Physical Therapists Do?

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.

Day-to-Day Responsibilities

• 1Plan, 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.
• 2Perform and document an initial exam, evaluating data to identify problems and determine a diagnosis prior to intervention.
• 3Record prognosis, treatment, response, and progress in patient's chart or enter information into computer.
• 4Instruct patient and family in treatment procedures to be continued at home.
• 5Evaluate effects of treatment at various stages and adjust treatments to achieve maximum benefit.
• 6Confer with the patient, medical practitioners, or appropriate others to plan, implement, or assess the intervention program.
• 7Administer manual exercises, massage, or traction to help relieve pain, increase patient strength, or decrease or prevent deformity or crippling.
• 8Obtain patients' informed consent to proposed interventions.

Required Skills

• Reading Comprehension
• Active Listening
• Speaking
• Critical Thinking
• Writing
• Monitoring
• 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

Physical Therapists Salary