Noemi
What does the average day in the life of a Physical Therapist Assistant student look like?
#physical-therapy #pta-school #pediatric-physical-therapy
3 answers
Faith Jefferson
Faith’s Answer
Your day in the life will look differently based on your school of choice. You should prepare to be on campus from 8-5 Monday through Friday. You will attend typical lectures in addition to hands-on lab times most days. Also, you will also need to find time to practice manual skills and study.
Below is a short list of list of foundational classes that most schools offer in the first year.
Kinesiology – This course heavily focuses on body kinematics and how the body moves. This is also where you’ll begin to learn basic clinical skills, like performing palpations, manual muscle tests (MMTs), goniometry measurements, hand-held dynamometry (HHD) tests, and how to properly document these measurements.
Clinical Foundations – Get your gait belt ready because this course is all about safe patient transfers, bed mobility techniques, and fitting and appropriate uses of assistive devices. ADA requirements, important factors in the acute setting (like how to prevent pressure sores), and gait training are covered as well.
Gross Anatomy – During this brutal course, anticipate learning (what felt like) every single vein, artery, nerve, and muscle in the human body and their function. Be aware, most programs use real cadavers for dissections, so mentally prepare yourself for those sights and smells. Also, we were in lab 4x per week, so also prepare to be stinky all the time and have scrubs/old clothes that can get dirty.
Neuroscience – Just when you thought you had anatomy down, neuroscience will swoop in to remind you just how complex the human body is. The visual system, proprioception, cranial nerves, memory & learning, motor systems, and more. You’ll know it all, down to every last pathway.
Patient Documentation – Basically is what it sounds like: how to document what you did with the patient and if it worked. This gets submitted to insurance, so if you want to get paid, pay attention and have great therapy documentation skills!
Physical Agents – This stimulating course is just that: stimulation of tissue to encourage healing, reduce pain, or aid muscle strengthening. Topics covered typically are hot packs, cold packs, electrical stimulation, ultrasound, and other modalities.
Research – Research, research, research. Be prepared to dive deep into different types of statistical analyses, study design, sampling, reliability, validity, correlation, regression models, and more!
Clinical Rotations – This will vary a bit between programs, but usually within the first year or two of school, you’ll go on your first clinical rotation. Here, you’ll finally apply all the skills you’ve learned so far with your first patients!
All the Best!
This was super helpful, thank you!
Alondra
Moinul Moinul
Moinul’s Answer
I am moinul,I'm from William Paterson University of NJ.
Here is how the average day in the life of PTA student look like,
It is possible to be a PTA with the major exercise science or athletic trainer but I believe exercise science helps more and you can also take the Sport management as your minor if you are planning for the business purpose in the future.
In the first semester you will be given some common subjects (15-17 credit's). These classes may include English reading,English writing,Kenisiology,A&P 1(Anatomy and physiology),math,and some basic classes to complete 15-17 credit.Then, the main part start: most classes seems pretty easy depending on the teacher but,A&P will be the most important one you have to take care of because,this is going to be a very difficult class for 100% student to pass the class for instance you have to spend a tremendous amount of time for this class and make sure your doing what your suppose to and its important that you don't fall behind.
But its going to be challanging for everyone,it was designed like this so that it will be easy for you to know if you are a fit for this major and if you will like what it is about because it is more than working with individuals as we see in the pt school or clinic.
Gabrielle Ouimet
Gabrielle’s Answer
A day-to-day shift usually looks like helping the patients get to their PT's, putting heat on the patients, talking regularly to the patients and starting to form a bunch of connections with all of the therapists. I have learned so much from my few months as an assistant and you can really learn if it is the correct career path for you.