Physical Therapist Assistant Associate’s Degree Students Are “Moving Forward” for National Physical Therapy Month

Physical Therapy: Helping Patients Move Forward

October is National Physical Therapy Month, and the motto adopted for this year by the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) is “Move Forward.”

This motto is not only appropriate for the month-long celebration of the physical therapy industry but also appropriate for our North Olmsted, Ohio, college students who are enrolled in the Physical Therapist Assistant (PTA) Associate’s Degree program as they continue to progress through their training.

Helping Physical Therapy Patients to “Move Forward”

The ability to “move forward” may be something each person takes for granted until pain, injury, or illness interferes with the ability to move, work, walk, or perform basic self-care.

Physical therapists and physical therapist assistants use their knowledge of anatomy, physiology, kinesiology, therapeutic exercise, pathology, human development, and aging to help decrease pain and improve mobility and function across each patient’s lifespan.

Enabling Cleveland Physical Therapist Assistant Degree Students to “Move Forward”

The PTA Program at Remington College in North Olmsted is a relatively new program that admitted its first class of students in July 2009.

Physical therapist assistant students are currently enrolled in the first of their three clinical assignments, in addition to completing their coursework at the Campus. Clinical education, or “clinicals” as they are often referred to by PTA students, allow our students to develop and refine skills that they originally learned in either the classroom or the lab.

When asked to describe their clinical experiences, our PTA students generally feel that they are “challenging and exciting.”

Moving the Physical Therapy Industry Forward

Physical therapist assistants work under the supervision of a physical therapist to help decrease pain and to improve and restore balance, strength, range of motion, and functional abilities. The physical therapy field can be both demanding and gratifying, and its practitioners, their patients, and the industry as a whole remain dedicated to “moving forward.”

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The Physical Therapist Assistant program at Remington College – Cleveland West Campus has been granted Candidate for Accreditation status by the Commission on Accreditation in Physical Therapy Education of the American Physical Therapy Association (1111 North Fairfax Street, Alexandria, VA, 22314; phone: 703-706-3245; email:accreditation@apta.org). Candidacy is not an accreditation status nor does it assure eventual accreditation. Candidate for Accreditation is a pre-accreditation status of affiliation with the Commission on Accreditation in Physical Therapy Education that indicates the program is progressing toward accreditation.