Top 12 Physical Therapist Assistant Skills to Put on Your Resume
Crafting a standout resume as a Physical Therapist Assistant (PTA) demands a sharp, intentional showcase of skills that proves technical know-how and the ability to support patients and the care team. The sections below unpack core competencies that lift a resume off the page—showing readiness, range, and the steady hands patients count on.
Physical Therapist Assistant Skills
- Patient Care
- Rehabilitation
- Manual Therapy
- Kinesiology Tape
- Electrotherapy (e.g., TENS)
- Ultrasound Therapy
- Exercise Prescription
- Gait Training
- Aquatic Therapy
- Orthopedic Support
- CPR Certified
- Documentation (e.g., WebPT)
1. Patient Care
Patient care for a PTA means carrying out the plan of care set by the Physical Therapist, guiding therapeutic exercise, applying modalities safely, coaching movement, and keeping patients informed and motivated. It’s technical skill paired with calm presence.
Why It's Important
High-quality patient care drives recovery, keeps treatment safe, and builds trust. When sessions feel tailored and clear, patients follow through—and outcomes move in the right direction.
How to Improve Patient Care Skills
Boosting patient care comes down to clarity, consistency, and empathy in action.
Sharpen communication: Use plain language, confirm understanding with teach-back, and check in often. Avoid jargon unless you explain it.
Stay current: Take accredited continuing education through state and national PT associations and reputable CE providers. Apply what you learn right away.
Lead with empathy: Listen for goals, fears, and barriers. Reflect them back. Small validations change adherence.
Use smart tools: Patient portals, EHR-based home programs, and simple progress trackers keep care coordinated and visible.
Teach purposefully: Explain the why behind each exercise. Short, specific cues beat long lectures.
Be culturally responsive: Adapt education and approaches to preferences, language, and health beliefs. Respect fosters buy-in.
Focus on safety, dignity, and measurable steps. The rest follows.
How to Display Patient Care Skills on Your Resume
2. Rehabilitation
Rehabilitation is the structured process of restoring function after injury, surgery, or illness—progressively loading tissues, retraining movement, and reinforcing habits that last. PTAs translate plans into action, session by session.
Why It's Important
Rehab rebuilds capacity. Less pain, better mobility, safer movement. It shortens the distance between dependence and independence.
How to Improve Rehabilitation Skills
Keep learning: Evidence evolves. Follow clinical practice guidelines, attend CE, and review current research summaries to refresh approach.
Personalize care: Align exercises with the patient’s goals and life demands. Tailor dosage, pace, and progressions.
Leverage tech wisely: Wearables, metronomes, and simple video feedback can sharpen form and boost engagement.
Collaborate actively: Sync with the PT and wider team. Quick updates prevent drift and duplication.
Measure what matters: Use standardized outcome measures and session metrics. Adjust early when the data nudges you.
How to Display Rehabilitation Skills on Your Resume
3. Manual Therapy
Manual therapy includes hands-on techniques—soft tissue work, joint mobilization grades within scope, gentle stretching—to ease pain and improve motion so exercise can do its job.
Why It's Important
Skilled hands can lower guarding, calm symptoms, and open a window for better movement. The right dose, at the right time, changes the session’s trajectory.
How to Improve Manual Therapy Skills
Train intentionally: Take focused courses, practice under supervision, and refine one technique at a time.
Build feel: Slow down. Compare sides. Seek subtle changes in tone, glide, and patient response.
Seek feedback: Ask the PT to observe. Debrief what worked, what didn’t, and why.
Pair with movement: Follow manual work with targeted exercise to lock in gains.
Know the evidence: Stay aware of indications, precautions, and when manual care adds value versus when it doesn’t.
How to Display Manual Therapy Skills on Your Resume
4. Kinesiology Tape
Kinesiology tape is elastic, breathable tape applied to support soft tissue, cue posture or movement, and manage swelling while allowing motion.
Why It's Important
It can provide short-term relief, proprioceptive input, and light support between sessions. Not a cure-all—sometimes the nudge patients need.
How to Improve Kinesiology Tape Skills
Master the basics: Understand skin prep, stretch percentages, and common patterns (muscle, ligament, correction, edema).
Match tape to task: Choose technique based on the goal—pain modulation, lymphatic flow, posture cueing, or support.
Prioritize safety: Screen for skin sensitivities, test small areas first, and review contraindications.
Use quality materials: Consistent elasticity and adhesive make or break the application.
Customize: Vary anchor points and direction to fit anatomy and activity demands.
Evaluate effect: Check comfort and function after application and at the next visit. Keep what helps, ditch what doesn’t.
How to Display Kinesiology Tape Skills on Your Resume
5. Electrotherapy (e.g., TENS)
Electrotherapy like TENS delivers electrical current through the skin to modulate pain or stimulate muscle activity. Used thoughtfully, it complements exercise and manual care.
Why It's Important
It offers a non-pharmacologic way to manage pain and engage muscles, especially early on when movement is limited.
How to Improve Electrotherapy (e.g., TENS) Skills
Dial in parameters: Adjust frequency, pulse width, and intensity to patient goals and tolerance. Reassess within minutes.
Place with purpose: Electrode placement matters. Map pain patterns and dermatomes; consider motor points for NMES.
Screen carefully: Respect contraindications (e.g., implanted devices, pregnancy over abdomen/low back, malignancy in field, impaired sensation).
Blend with care: Pair with education, manual therapy, and graded exercise for durable gains.
Educate: If using home TENS, teach setup, safety, wear time, and when to stop.
How to Display Electrotherapy (e.g., TENS) Skills on Your Resume
6. Ultrasound Therapy
Therapeutic ultrasound uses high-frequency sound waves to heat or stimulate tissue. It’s applied with a moving sound head over gel to aid comfort and tissue extensibility.
Why It's Important
When chosen appropriately, it may reduce pain and improve soft tissue flexibility, setting the stage for better exercise performance.
How to Improve Ultrasound Therapy Skills
Use correct dosing: Match frequency and intensity to depth and tissue (e.g., 1 MHz for deeper structures, 3 MHz for superficial; pulsed vs. continuous depending on goals).
Keep it moving: Maintain steady movement and ample gel to prevent hotspots and ensure even delivery.
Maintain equipment: Confirm calibration per clinic protocol and inspect transducers regularly.
Choose wisely: Consider the evidence. Use ultrasound when it supports function, not by habit.
Educate and pair: Explain what patients should feel and follow with stretching or activity to capitalize on effects.
How to Display Ultrasound Therapy Skills on Your Resume
7. Exercise Prescription
Exercise prescription is the targeted programming of mobility, strength, endurance, and motor control work—scaled to the person, their goals, and the phase of healing.
Why It's Important
Right exercise, right dose, right time. That’s the engine of rehab. It reduces risk, accelerates progress, and keeps gains sticky.
How to Improve Exercise Prescription Skills
Assess first: Baseline strength, range, pain irritability, and red flags guide everything that follows.
Apply principles: Specificity, overload, and progression. Adjust volume and intensity with intention.
Follow guidelines: Reference clinical practice guidelines and widely accepted exercise standards to inform choices.
Use tools: Build clear home programs with printouts or digital platforms. Include videos or visuals when possible.
Monitor response: Track RPE, pain behavior, and next-day soreness. Progress when recovery supports it.
Adapt relentlessly: If it isn’t working, change the variable—tempo, range, load, position, cueing.
How to Display Exercise Prescription Skills on Your Resume
8. Gait Training
Gait training rebuilds safe, efficient walking. It may involve cueing, assistive devices, body-weight support, treadmill work, or task-specific drills.
Why It's Important
Walking is freedom. Better balance, fewer falls, more independence—gait work can change daily life fast.
How to Improve Gait Training Skills
Start with analysis: Observe from multiple angles. Identify key deficits—stance time, toe clearance, stride length, symmetry.
Strength and mobility: Target hips, ankles, and core. Build what’s missing to support clean mechanics.
Train balance: Static to dynamic. Progress surfaces, dual-tasking, and visual conditions as tolerated.
Fit devices right: Canes, crutches, walkers—ensure proper height and teach safe sequencing.
Use cues and feedback: External cues, metronomes, and mirrors can quickly refine patterns.
Guard for safety: Harnesses, gait belts, and realistic environments reduce risk while confidence grows.
How to Display Gait Training Skills on Your Resume
9. Aquatic Therapy
Aquatic therapy uses buoyancy, resistance, and hydrostatic pressure to reduce load, move with less pain, and build function when land-based work is too much.
Why It's Important
Water changes the rules. Lower impact, controlled resistance, often faster wins in mobility and confidence.
How to Improve Aquatic Therapy Skills
Grow your toolkit: Learn progressions specific to the pool—depth changes, turbulence, equipment choices.
Screen well: Watch for contraindications like open wounds, incontinence without containment, or active infection.
Individualize: Set depth and direction to match goals—offload joints, challenge balance, or build power.
Coach transitions: Bridge gains from water to land with graded carries, step-ups, or task practice.
Engage patients: Explain how water helps. When patients feel why it works, effort follows.
How to Display Aquatic Therapy Skills on Your Resume
10. Orthopedic Support
Orthopedic support includes braces, splints, taping, and positioning that protect healing tissue, guide alignment, and reduce pain during activity.
Why It's Important
Stability buys safety. With the right support, patients can move earlier and train better while tissues recover.
How to Improve Orthopedic Support Skills
Know the options: Understand indications for offloading, immobilization, and dynamic support across common joints.
Fit precisely: Proper sizing and adjustment prevent skin issues and improve adherence.
Educate thoroughly: Donning, doffing, wear time, and skin checks—clarity prevents setbacks.
Coordinate care: Align with the PT and surgeon protocols. Update when healing milestones change requirements.
Monitor and refine: Reassess comfort and function. Modify straps, padding, or device selection as needed.
How to Display Orthopedic Support Skills on Your Resume
11. CPR Certified
Being CPR certified (often BLS for Healthcare Providers) confirms current training to respond to cardiac and respiratory emergencies promptly and effectively.
Why It's Important
Emergencies don’t wait. This certification safeguards patients, coworkers, and visitors across settings.
How to Improve CPR Certified Skills
Renew on schedule: Keep certification current—typically every two years or per issuing body.
Practice hands-on: Use manikins regularly to retain compressions depth and rate, airway skills, and AED flow.
Advance as needed: Consider ACLS or first aid add-ons if your setting demands it.
Simulate: Scenario training under mild pressure cements decision-making.
Debrief events: Review real or simulated responses to tighten performance.
How to Display CPR Certified Skills on Your Resume
12. Documentation (e.g., WebPT)
Documentation is the clear, compliant record of care—evaluations by the PT, PTA treatment notes, outcomes, and progress—kept within an EHR like WebPT. It tells the story, supports billing, and protects patients and providers.
Why It's Important
If it isn’t documented, it didn’t happen. Accurate notes enable continuity, justify medical necessity, and meet legal and payer requirements.
How to Improve Documentation (e.g., WebPT) Skills
Be specific and objective: Quantify reps, loads, ranges, assist levels, and responses. Avoid vague phrasing.
Use structured formats: SOAP flow keeps notes concise and complete. Smart phrases speed up without copy-forward bloat.
Code correctly: Match CPT codes to skilled interventions and time. Align ICD-10 codes with the plan of care.
Protect privacy: Follow HIPAA, lock screens, and limit identifiers. Share on a need-to-know basis only.
Document defensibly: Link interventions to goals and impairments. Note education and home program updates.
Audit and improve: Ask for peer review. Learn clinic preferences for timing, co-signature, and re-exam triggers.
How to Display Documentation (e.g., WebPT) Skills on Your Resume
