By Santiago Muguiro
Norwalk Community College offers a high-quality Physical Therapist Assistant Program that is budget friendly.
“One of the first questions people ask me when considering physical therapy as a career choice is what is the difference between a Physical Therapist and a Physical Therapist Assistant?” said Dr. Jennifer Bresnick, director of the Physical Therapy Assistant Program at NCC, in her introductory video to the program.
“Becoming a PT (Physical Therapist) costs about ten times more than becoming a PTA,” she explained, “and a PT doesn’t make 10 times more than a PTA.”
Bresnick goes into detail about the program in the video, explaining four types of ways a POC, or Plan of Care, might be executed, such as therapeutic exercise, physical modalities, functional training and manual therapy.
She talks about the varieties of treatments and diagnoses that a PTA can choose from, and the four major categories of physical therapy intervention, which include helping the patient with their muscles, nervous system, heart and skin.
“There is a lot of variety in the physical therapy profession," said Bresnick in the video.
Make sure you know physical therapy is for you before you invest, though, as there are some criteria you need to meet in order to be accepted into the program.
“The best way to see if physical therapy might be right for you is to volunteer or observe in any facility that has PTs and PTAs on staff," continued Bresnick.
In fact, one of the criteria is to spend 40 hours observing or volunteering. If you do decide it is for you, though, the video covers all you need to know about the program in less than seven minutes, including a very comprehensive view of the plan of studies.
Here is where you can watch the Physical Therapy Assistant program video