Warwick Beacon

blrehab    rhode island

Posted at 11:39am on Thursday, November 15th, 2007

I read with interest, Russell J. Moore's article "injury to basketball player" Tuesday 11/13/2007, and find the need to comment on its portrayal of our state's 500 actively licensed Physical Therapy Assistants (PTA) as being or having "adequate" skills.

This article creates a perception and/or implies that clinics that utilize these professionals are delivering only “adequate “, read “between the lines”, possibly “ inadequate or substandard” therapy to their patients and further more that clinics that utilize PTA’s are doing this because PTA’s are “cheap labor”.

Licensed Physical Therapy Assistants in the state of Rhode Island are regulated by the Rhode Island Department of Health and are required to meet stringent moral and educational standards in order to sit for state examinations and upon achieving a minimal exam score, to be considered for licensure in the state of Rhode Island. Physical Therapy Assistants bring with them a comprehensive skill set related to the treatment of acute and chronic injury, disease, pain and functional impairment, and in fact are subject to a Physical Therapist’s oversight of their treatment delivery and care of their mutual patient.

As with any profession, experience and continued education in one’s field will distinguish one PTA’s skill set from another and I venture to say that many PTA’s are more educated, experienced and more capable and expert in treatment areas than some of the state’s 1193 active Physical Therapists. In fact many of our practices’ Physical Therapy Assistants have gone on to other related therapeutic areas and have multiple professional licenses which have allowed our clinics to not only deliver excellent, expert physical and occupational services but to also deliver specialized health and wellness services in our clinics throughout the state.

I do agree with the article’s statement that "one-on-one" treatment is ideal, because that is and has been our practice’s treatment philosophy for over 20 years. Our practice has always placed it’s patients as it’s number one priority and it’s ability to deliver high quality services to these patient’s as it mission. We do this utilizing a PT/ PTA model.
Our Physical Therapists and Physical Therapy Assistants are hand picked and prized for their dedicated expert approach to getting our patients better one at a time. Inside our practice model, all of our patients are seen on a one-to-one basis during their visit.

I would add that my comments probably speak for many of the states privately owned physical therapy facilities that operate inside of a PT/PTA model.

I appreciate this opportunity to express my view of this article and to speak on behalf of the many Physical Therapy Assistant professionals working together with our Physical Therapists, whom I have observed “caring for, “treating and “making better” our patients over the past ten years.