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Administers physiotherapy treatments (using heat, light massage,

or mechanical devices) to patients in homes and instructs patients’

families in approved practices and techniques of physical therapy.

The work involves a planned itinerary through a designated territory as part of a program to prepare persons in homes to care for crippled patients upon their release from hospitals and clinics to the home, and to administer prescribed treatment in the home to those patients still in need of professional attention. Treatment is prescribed by physicians, but the work is complicated by the lack of adequate equipment and devices in the field and ingenuity is required in devising satisfactory apparatus necessary to carry out instructions

General administrative supervision is received from the Crippled Children’s Services Director; immediate supervision is received from the health officer of the district or local unit to which assigned. Physicians in local health units are consulted in the event of abnormal or unusual reaction on the part of patients treated.

Examples of duties characteristic of positions in this class:

1. Consults with physician or nurse regarding patient’s condition and program of care prescribed; visits health departments and patient's home and administers prescribed physical therapy treatment in either place. May give any or all of the following treatments: infrared heat, ultraviolet, paraffin baths, hot pack, muscle training, diathermy, underwater exercise and bandaging.

2. Sets up in cooperation with local health department and under guidance of clinic physician, small physical therapy centers in local health department.

3. Teaches parents of hospitalized children the exercises and other physical therapy procedures which are to be continued when the patients are returned to the home.

4. Attends field clinics and gives physical therapy treatments to cases referred by attending physicians.

5. Instructs nurses and families of patients regarding exercises and treatments to be administered between visits of the Physical Therapist.

6. Participates in case conferences and assists in providing in-service orientation in physical therapy for the staffs of local health units when requested to do so by the local health officer.

 

Graduation from an approved school of physical therapy and eligibility for licensure to practice physical therapy in Virginia.

Considerable knowledge of skeletal and neuro-anatomy. Considerable knowledge of fundamental theories of physical therapy techniques and of their proper application, including electrotherapy, hydrotherapy, and actinotherapy. Considerable knowledge of the effects of exercise, massage, heat, and bath treatments; ability to administer the accepted physical therapy treatments; ability to keep records and make reports; ability to gain cooperation of patients, parents, and clinic staff members and inspire their confidence; ability to supervise and teach.