Question 1Physical therapy as a health profession functions in providing services that include body function restoration, mobility improvement, pain relieve and limiting or prevention of permanent physical disabilities. Physical therapist restore, maintain and promote overall health, wellness and fitness. They attend to accident victims, patients suffering from disabling conditions such as low back pain, arthritis, heart disease, fractures and head injuries. Therapists examine patients’ medical histories, then test and measure their strength, balance and coordination, posture, respiration, muscle performance and motor function. After examination they develop treatment plans that describe the treatment strategy as well its purpose and expected outcome.
They also determine the ability of patients to become independent and reintegrate into workplace or community after an injury or illness.The main roles and responsibilities of a physical therapist entails; patient diagnosis and treatment, relieve pain and discomfort, improve movement and body function. Diagnosis and treatment requires formulation of injury recovery and that includes physical training and reconditioning.
As a physical therapist one needs to diagnose the patients’ injuries and basing on what he or she sees and has been told by medical doctors, he or she will have to put up an exercise program and schedule patient visits to deal appropriately with their conditions.As a physical therapy professional one has to treat people recovering from injuries that limit their range of movement. These injuries usually do affect legs, arms and back. An example of an individual injured in a car accident for instance might have been in a hospital bed for weeks recovering from broken legs and other injuries. A physical therapist can help them regain some or all of their movement.
This is restored by assigning regular movement and various exercises.Body function is another common area of recovery involving helping patients to regain full use of their body parts. Physical therapy focuses in everything from minor conditions such as back stiffness or simple arms and legs injuries to more severe conditions such as broken bones.
An example of patients with arthritis being guided to perform preventative exercises to maintain proper functioning of hands, feet, legs and arms.Reduction of pain and discomfort is what physical therapy aims at in patient care. Along with improving use of weakened muscles and body parts, physical therapist do help improve the patient’s quality of life when they deal with pain and discomfort. For instance helping patients with major back problems by stretching and strengthening muscles as a way of reducing pain, swelling and discomfort.
Question 2Starting my academic career as a health practitioner, I have been keenly interested in offering the best in patient care and how to give them the best medication and help possible. This has been a perfect match for me to pursue physical therapy and trying as much to determine functional problems and how to improve the performance of individuals with some aspect of physical limitation. Throughout my internship programme I have been an avid consumer of research articles, attempting to be able to do this at the highest level possible. As I continued to practice, I realized there are many more questions and fields yet to be addressed to help people function at their highest. I therefore settled in returning to pursue physical therapy is the best way for me to contribute to knowledge to help other individuals meet the same goals of minimizing limitations in the most efficient way possible.
Developing a relationship with patients has been one interesting thing with me.During my internship program, I related mostly with patients which inspired me the most to make them feel happy and give them the best medication and care possible. Being able to develop a good relationship with patients allows an excellent interaction in the physical therapy field. This allows the patient feel comfortable with the therapist and more so it allows for work not to seem like work.
Also the relationship makes them comfortable communicating their feelings about the healing progress, exercises, and stretches that they are performing in therapy. Helping patients is the core thing I value the most since being able to enhance the life of a person and to observe strength and growth is very rewarding. This is considerably desirable to me and am looking forward to enhancing people’s lives by healing their injuries. All these makes me choose to pursue DPT program.I meet the following traits that would make me successful in the DPT program. First, I am realistic in all I can do and what I can’t do because I shall know when to seek help, refer my tutor or both. I do also have the compassion and ambition to study that would later enhance my skills in the medical field to enable me give my patients the best recovery possible. Adopting a growth mind-set is what drives me more in pursuing physical therapy.
Whenever I feel vulnerable or inadequate I remind myself it’s a sign of growth. This allows me to shift my focus from avoiding failure to pursuing success.All these interests, goals and life experiences has made me get drawn to apply for admission for DPT program at Utica.
Question 3Taking DPT program at Utica graduate school is really important to facilitate the best future. The key criteria that led me to choose Utica College are;Provision of great outdoor learning opportunities in fields like rural health centres and hospitals that adds up to my vast experience.Also having fewer staff members substantially simplifies the organization of teaching and schedule problems since there are fewer people to manage or adapt to.Again since Utica is a small college it means we will be having small classes, which encourages students to pay better attention. Students will learn more effectively when they have opportunity to react and participate as soon as they feel ready. This would be obviously impossible in a lecture hall with 300 students.Also the direct interaction with tutors will shape and guide the course the way we like, particularly considering our background knowledge and academic level.
We will also have benefits of having a small number of staff for our professional projects and since we are few we have more choices of internshipThere are fewer disadvantages studying at Utica College. The main disadvantages are;There are fewer student activities to participate in hence students aren’t able to develop their interests.Also there will be less opportunity when it comes to research and making of valuable connections.Above all, I believe Utica College would be a good place to connect with other students and build strong friendships across year groups. It would also offer pleasant and effective training, which creates greater knowledge and more open mindedness.
