Physical Therapy Technician

120 Hours / Access Length: 12 Months / Delivery: Online, Mentor Supported

Course Overview:

This comprehensive course will cover the knowledge, practices, and techniques needed to prepare you for the AMCA Physical Therapy Technician certification exam and satisfy the certification course requirement prior to exam admittance. Throughout this course, you will be required to read portions of the assigned text, complete reflective activities and practice activities, watch videos demonstrating procedure and research more information on assigned topics. Completion of this course will take approximately 120 hours. At the completion of this course, you will be required to take and pass the 50 question exam that will prepare you for your national certification exam.

This course prepares students to take the AMCA Physical Therapy Technician certification exam.   The cost of the course includes the cost of the AMCA Physical Therapy Technician certification exam.

Students will:

• Discuss the role of the physical therapy technician and rehabilitation team as it relates to working with patients with physical disabilities.
• Demonstrate understanding and proper usage of applicable medical terminology.
• Identify clerical and administrative tasks, and their associated steps and procedures, that may be required of the physical therapy technician.
• Define the role of the physical therapy technician in caring for patients.
• Explain the purpose of patient preparation and identify the physical therapy technician’s role, identify individual responsibilities, in preparing the patient for physical therapy treatments.
• List and define all procedures to properly transfer a patient.
• Explain how to choose the appropriate ambulatory device for a patient’s use, based on the patient’s specific need.
• Describe the purpose and proper usage of therapeutic exercises and identify the physical therapy technician’s role in these practices.
• Discuss the purpose and identify the different agents and modalities in performing physical therapy.
• Identify the different types of specialist therapies used for patients with specific needs.

Course Outline:

Lesson 1: Introduction to Physical Therapy

In this introductory lesson, you will learn about the Physical Therapy Technician profession. This will include information on the daily requirements as a PT Technician and the responsibilities as part of a rehabilitation team. You will also learn about a variety of career avenues and medical offices that require technicians on staff. Following this, you will begin content knowledge regarding ethical and professional behavior, proper charting and documentation, electronic health records, confidentiality, effective communication with patients and colleagues, and understanding legal guidelines, including HIPAA laws and regulations. You will end this lesson by completed all activities, reading all resources provided and completing the lesson quiz.

Lesson 2: Anatomy and Physiology

This lesson will focus on the most common medical terminology and abbreviations followed by the basic structure and function of the human body. This will include the digestive, circulatory, respiratory, nervous, integumentary, urinary, endocrine, reproductive, and musculoskeletal systems. You will continue into the anatomy and physiology of the musculoskeletal system since this is the primary system that Physical Therapy evaluates and treats.

Lesson 3: Patient Preparation

Lesson 3 will focus on safety in the workplace and the working environment for both you, your colleagues and the patient. Specifically, you will learn about maintaining a positive therapeutic environment for patients that ensures comfort, confidentiality and security. Additionally, you will learn about safe transfers of patients, proper body alignments and movements, turning and positioning a patient, infection control and OSHA guidelines.

Lesson 4: Physical Therapy Evaluation Components

This lesson will encompass everything from diagnostic testing and physical therapy assessment tools including ROM and strength measurements. From there, you will learn about different modalities the physical therapist has to choose from when treating patients and how to assist the therapist with exercises. These will include different ROM activities and different forms of strengthening techniques.

Lesson 5: Physical Therapy Modalities and Assistive Devices

Lesson 5 will consist of learning more about the patients’ weight-bearing status, which assistive device is best to use, and then the different ambulation techniques. As an technician, learning how to assist patients with the use of their assistive device is very important as it is a big component of what your day will entail. Gait patterns vary depending on one’s injury and amount of weight-bearing they are permitted. Additionally, going up and down the stairs is often challenging for a patient and you will learn how to guide them safely through this process.

Lesson 6: Physical Therapy Exercises and Gait Training

Lesson 6 will cover the most common types of diseases and injuries seen by physical therapists in different settings. From there, an overview of the most common exercises will be described.

Lesson 7: Career Prep

This lesson will assist you in how to write a cover letter and resume when searching for a job. From there, it is important to learn how to practice for an interview and present a good first impression.

All necessary course materials are included.

Certification(s):

This course prepares students to take the AMCA Physical Therapy Technician certification exam.   The cost of the course includes the cost of the AMCA Physical Therapy Technician certification exam.

• Cable and DSL internet connections are recommended for the best experience.

• CPU: 1 GHz or higher
• RAM: 2 GB or higher
• Resolution: 1280 x 720 or higher
• Speakers / Headphones
• Microphone (Webinar / Live Online sessions)

• Microsoft Windows 7 or 10 (Home, Pro)
• Mac OSX 10 or higher.
• Latest Chrome OS
• Latest Linux Distributions

NOTE: While we understand that our courses can be viewed on Android and iPhone devices, we do not recommend the use of these devices for our courses. The size of these devices do not provide a good learning environment for students taking online or live online based courses.

• Latest Google Chrome is recommended for the best experience.
• Latest Mozilla FireFox
• Latest Microsoft Edge
• Latest Apple Safari

• Office suite software (Microsoft Office, OpenOffice, or LibreOffice)
• PDF reader program (Adobe Reader, FoxIt)
• Courses may require other software that is denoted in the above course outline.