Adequate and appropriate physical therapy is very important to amputees. Physical therapists can and should play an important part in every patient's rehabilitation. Prosthetists are supposed to build prosthetics and physical therapists are supposed to teach patients how to use them. However, this is rarely the case. Most of the time prosthetists have to do the lion's share of the workload when it comes to gait training.
The reason is largely because physical therapists do not learn much about working with amputees while in school. Dr. Audrey Levin, a professor at University of Tennessee, teaches a course on orthotics and prosthetics to students of physical therapy. In an interview earlier this year she explained that her course provides students with only a superficial overview of prosthetics. She wishes she could teach more but there just isn't time. There is too much information to cover in one 3 credit course. And what is startling is that Dr. Levin believes her course is one of the more comprehensive prosthetic offerings in the country.
So as a prosthetist what do you do? How do you find physical therapists that know how to work with your patients? The answer lies not in finding them, but training them yourself. A new company, Clinical Education Concepts specializes in teaching prosthetists how to teach physical therapists about working with amputees. This idea will help your patients, and help you generate new referrals. Clinical Education Concepts is a company worth looking at.
