posted on 2018-04-24, 10:06authored byRuth Parry, Catherine D. Vass
This paper discusses some of the issues relevant to the role and training of physiotherapy assistants. It describes the processes of role definition, assessment and training of one particular assistant, developed in the context of a larger research study. A small survey of senior physiotherapists' views on task delegation, training and working with assistants was conducted, using semi-structured interviews. The method and findings are described; broad agreement between the physiotherapists was found. A training and assessment package was then developed and implemented. The training was specifically related to treatment of the upper limb of acute stroke patients. While delegation to assistants is part of everyday practice for many physiotherapists and the training of these staff a professional obligation, the structure and support to do so are often lacking. In the context of the description of a particular case, this paper provides some insights and points of interest for clinicians involved in training and task delegation to assistants.
Funding
The rehabilitation of arm function study is a three-year project funded by the NHS Research and Development Programme on Cardiovascular Disease and Stroke.
History
School
Social Sciences
Department
Communication, Media, Social and Policy Studies
Published in
Physiotherapy
Volume
83
Issue
1
Pages
33 - 40
Citation
PARRY, R. and VASS, C.D., 1997. Training and assessment of physiotherapy assistants. Physiotherapy, 83 (1), pp.33-40.
This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/