Become a Physical Therapy Aide

Introduction to Physical Therapy

In this lesson, you'll be introduced to the profession of physical therapy (PT). You'll learn about the history of PT and how two wars and an epidemic created a need for this profession. To help you understand what makes PTs different from other health care professionals, this course will discuss the types of patients who need PT and the types of treatment PTs use. You'll understand the important difference between PTs, PT assistants, and PT aides as you come to understand the special role of PT aides.

Communication for the Physical Therapy Aide

As a PT aide, you'll communicate with many different people, so this lesson will focus on the communication skills you'll need to help you communicate with your supervising PT, patients, and their families. You'll learn about some of the challenges you'll face when communicating with sick or injured people, and how to demonstrate the traits of empathy, respect, and patience. You'll also spend some time on SOAP notes—the method many medical personnel use to document their evaluations and patient treatments.

Ethics and Law for the PT Aide

This very important lesson will help you stay out of trouble by discussing the law and ethics for the PT aide. You'll learn the differences between law and ethics and why you must be concerned about both. You'll go over the American Physical Therapy Association's Code of Ethics, relating its principles to PT aides. You'll also learn about the American Hospital Association's A Patient's Bill of Rights so you'll know how you should treat patients in different situations. You'll want to understand both negligence and malpractice, so this lesson covers those topics, too. Finally, you'll spend some time on the very important topic of patient confidentiality. You can face stiff penalties if you violate patient confidentiality, so you need to have a thorough understanding of this topic.

The Language of Physical Therapy

Have you ever noticed that every profession has its own unique language? The health care profession is no different. As a PT aide, it's vitally important that you understand the language that PTs use, which is the focus of this lesson. You'll cover planes of the body and directional terms. You'll also learn the terms that define the body's major regions and body cavities. The movements of joints have special names; this lesson will define them and include lots of graphics that demonstrate these movements. You'll finish up by learning some other terms related to function and movement in the last chapter.

Anatomy and Physiology: Part 1

In this lesson, you'll begin learning about the body's organ systems. You'll go over how your body is organized, from atoms to an entire individual. You'll learn about the muscular, skeletal, nervous, endocrine, circulatory, and lymphatic systems. You'll also learn about the organs in each of these systems, the jobs they perform, and disorders affecting these systems that are commonly treated by PTs.

Anatomy and Physiology: Part 2

In this lesson, you'll continue learning about the organ systems. To start out, you'll see how human organ systems are interrelated and how a problem with one system will affect the others. You'll then move on to a discussion of the integumentary (skin), digestive, urinary, respiratory, and reproductive systems. You'll learn about each system's organs, function, and some common disorders. You'll finish the lesson with a discussion of the most important concept in human physiology—homeostasis. Homeostasis means the drive of your body to keep many different variables, like blood pressure and temperature, within a certain range. You'll find out why this is so crucial and how you might be asked to monitor homeostasis while caring for patients.

Safety for the Physical Therapy Aide: Part 1

You'll start learning about specific safety issues in this lesson, focusing on infection control. Anyone working in healthcare must understand the meaning of infection, its causes, and how it spreads. To help you understand this, this lesson discusses the chain of infection and what you can do to break that chain so that the infection doesn't spread from one person to another. You'll spend some time on an infection called MRSA because it's so common and dangerous. Since proper hand hygiene is the most effective way to stop infection from spreading, you'll go over the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's guidelines. You'll also learn about patient-care equipment, environmental control, and the role of vaccinations.

Safety for the Physical Therapy Aide: Part 2

You'll explore important safety issues again in this lesson, but this time, instead of infection, you'll focus on proper