Technical Standards & Accommodations

Physical therapy is a mentally, physically, and psychologically demanding profession. Throughout the DPT curriculum, students acquire the foundation of knowledge, attitudes, skills, and behaviors that are necessary for a successful career as a physical therapist. Technical standards reflect those abilities that a physical therapist must possess for safe and effective clinical practice. The DPT Program is committed to excellence in accessibility and inclusivity, encouraging students with disabilities to self-disclose and seek accommodations to support their success. Prospective and current students must meet the following technical requirements with or without reasonable accommodation for admission, progression, and graduation in the DPT Program.

Accommodations

The DPT Program works closely with the Baylor University Office of Access and Learning Accommodation (OALA), to serve the needs of students with disabilities. Reasonable accommodation refers to ways in which the University can assist students with disabilities to accomplish learning activities; however, no students will be exempt from completing essential tasks. 

General Ability

The student is expected to demonstrate sufficient skills in observation, communication, professionalism, motor/psychomotor abilities, cognitive/intellectual abilities, and behavioral/social abilities. All data from these general skills must be integrated, analyzed, and synthesized in a consistent and accurate manner. 

Observational Ability

Students must be able to gather and accurately interpret information from both classroom and clinical environments. In the clinical setting, students must be able to examine and evaluate patients. These skills require the use, or functional equivalent of the senses: hearing, vision, and/or touch. Students must be able to observe a patient accurately, as well as observe digital and waveform readings and other graphic images to determine a patient’s condition. Examples of observational skills include palpation of peripheral pulses, soft tissue changes, bony prominences, ligamentous structures, areas of inflammation, and presence and degree of edema. A student must be able to observe a patient accurately at a distance and close at hand, noting non-verbal as well as verbal signals.

Communication Ability

Students must effectively communicate to explain treatment procedures, gather essential information from patients and others, provide patient education, and document in accordance with practice guidelines. These skills require the student to communicate effectively, sensitively, and convey a sense of compassion and empathy with patients to elicit information regarding mood and activities, as well as perceive non-verbal communications. Additionally, students must demonstrate effective and timely communication with the healthcare team and others.

Professionalism/Ethics Ability

Students are expected to uphold and demonstrate ethical behavior consistent with the role of a physical therapist in all interactions with patients, faculty, staff, peers, and the public. They must understand the legal and ethical principles governing the profession and practice in accordance with established laws and ethical standards. Students are expected to develop and maintain sensitive, interpersonal relationships with individuals, families, and members of the healthcare team from a variety of social, emotional, cultural, and intellectual backgrounds. They must demonstrate attributes of compassion, empathy, altruism, integrity, honesty, responsibility and tolerance. As a component of their education, students must demonstrate ethical behavior.

Motor/Psychomotor Ability

Students must demonstrate the motor skills necessary to provide care and direct treatment effectively. They must have sufficient motor function to manage patient encounters from examination through intervention. Students must be able to deliver general and therapeutic care in a manner that ensures the safety of the patient, caregivers, and themselves. This includes, but is not limited to, performing, describing, and directing others in safely lifting, transferring, guarding, and positioning patients. Additionally, many physical therapy interventions require advanced hands-on skills to perform patient care safely, such as manual therapy, wound debridement, positioning immobile patients, and gait training using therapeutic aids and orthotics.

Intellectual/Cognitive Abilities

Students must be able to synthesize detailed and complex information presented in both didactic and clinical coursework and engage in problem solving. To effectively solve problems, students are expected to be able to measure, calculate, reason, analyze, integrate, and synthesize information. In a clinical environment, the student must be able to synthesize knowledge and integrate the relevant aspects of a patient’s history, physical examination, and laboratory data, provide a reasoned explanation for likely therapy, recalling and retaining information in an efficient manner. The ability to incorporate new information from peers, teachers, and the medical literature in formulating treatment and plans is essential. 

Behavior/Social Attributes and Professionalism

Students must be able to exercise of good judgment, complete all responsibilities inherent to diagnosis and care of patients, and develop mature, sensitive, and effective relationships with patients and other healthcare providers. Students must be able to adapt to a changing environment, display flexibility, and learn to function in the face of uncertainties inherent in the clinical problems of patients. 

Specific Requirements

Specifically, students must be able to perform the following abilities, or their functional equivalent with or without reasonable accommodations:

1. Attend and participate in online and onsite classes for 40 or more hours per week during each trimester. Classes consist of a combination of synchronous and asynchronous online learning; onsite, face-to-face immersive lab experiences; and clinical activities. 

2. Use hearing, vision, and/or touch to receive and participate in classroom, laboratory, and clinical instruction and evaluate and treat patients. 

3. Communicate effectively using the English language at a level consistent with successful course completion and development of positive patient-therapist relationships. 

4. Complete readings, assignments, and other learning activities during and outside of class hours. 

5. Apply critical thinking processes to their work in the classroom and the clinic.

6. Exercise sound judgment in class and in the clinic. 

7. Recognize, gather, and synthesize critical pieces of information for clinical reasoning and decision-making during patient assessment activities in class or in the clinical setting. 

8. Perform physical therapy interventions in class or in the clinical setting by direct performance or by instruction and supervision of intermediaries. 

9. Participate in 8 to 10 hours of daily activities that may require long durations of sitting, standing, and/or walking during instructional and clinical situations. 

10. Frequently lift less than 10 pounds and occasionally lift between 10 and 100 pounds. 

11. Occasionally carry up to 25 pounds across an area of up to 50 feet.

12. Frequently exert 75 pounds of push/pull forces to objects up to 50 feet and occasionally exert 150 pounds of push/pull forces for this distance. 

13. Frequently twist, bend, and stoop. 

14. Occasionally squat, crawl, climb step stools, reach above shoulder level, and kneel. 

15. Frequently move from place-to-place and position-to-position at a speed that permits safe handling of classmates and patients. 

16. Frequently stand and walk while providing support to a classmate simulating a disability or while supporting a patient with a disability. 

17. Occasionally climb stairs and negotiate uneven terrain. 

18. Frequently use grasp and manual dexterity skills.