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Physiotherapy Assistant
All members of the team are concerned with the care and welfare of patients, each has a different role or reason for caring for the patient, but at the very heart of it, we are all doing the same work.
The physiotherapy assistant works under the direction of the physiotherapist. The assistants work together with the Physiotherapists to return a patient to their optimal functional capacity. In oncology this can mean very different things for different patients, physiotherapy assistants work with patients working to return to a prior level of function and with patients who have limited capacity as a result of disease progression.
The role of the physiotherapy assistant on the oncology team is to assist in the treatment of oncology patients at all stages of their disease.
Some of the responsibilities of the assistant are:
Individual exercise program instruction
Ambulation programs
Assisting with patients that require two people to mobilize
Posting transfer signs
Bed Positioning
Equipment tracking: walkers and assistive devices
Physiotherapy assistants work most closely with:
Physiotherapists
Nurses: to coordinate pain medication with therapy, current update of patient status
Personal care attendants
A referral is necessary prior to seeing each patient. A full assessment provided by a physiotherapist is required before giving a patient a walker.