Explore by Career/Healthcare Practitioners and Technical
Physical Therapists
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.
- Median pay
- $101,020
- per year
- 10-year outlook
- +10.9%
- Growing
- Typical entry
- Doctoral or professional degree
Key skills
- Reading Comprehension
- Active Listening
- Speaking
- Critical Thinking
- Social Perceptiveness
- Service Orientation
- Writing
- Monitoring
What they 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.
- Record prognosis, treatment, response, and progress in patient's chart or enter information into computer.
- Instruct patient and family in treatment procedures to be continued at home.
- Evaluate effects of treatment at various stages and adjust treatments to achieve maximum benefit.
- Confer with the patient, medical practitioners, or appropriate others to plan, implement, or assess the intervention program.
- Administer manual exercises, massage, or traction to help relieve pain, increase patient strength, or decrease or prevent deformity or crippling.
- 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.
- Direct, supervise, assess, and communicate with supportive personnel.
Majors that lead here
No mapped majors yet.
Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (OEWS, Employment Projections) and O*NET, used under CC BY 4.0.