Top 12 Physical Therapist Skills to Put on Your Resume
In the competitive world of physical therapy, a sharp, well-chosen skill set on your resume can tilt the odds. It signals competence, judgment, and a steady hand with patients—evidence you can deliver results, not just promises.
Physical Therapist Skills
- Manual Therapy
- Rehabilitation
- Orthopedics
- Neurological Care
- Pediatrics
- Geriatrics
- Sports Injuries
- Pain Management
- Cardiovascular Conditioning
- Kinesiology Tape
- Electrotherapy (e.g., TENS)
- Ultrasound Therapy
1. Manual Therapy
Manual therapy encompasses hands-on techniques—joint mobilization, manipulation, soft-tissue work—aimed at easing pain, improving motion, and restoring fluid, confident movement.
Why It's Important
It allows direct, precise input to joints and tissues, helping calm pain, boost range, and prime patients for active rehab. Sometimes the fastest way to change movement is through the hands.
How to Improve Manual Therapy Skills
Continue learning: Advance through structured coursework and lab-heavy seminars; deepen reasoning, not just techniques.
Certify with intent: Systems like Maitland or Mulligan can sharpen assessment and dosing. Choose depth over dabbling.
Deliberate practice: Short, frequent reps on peers and patients. Calibrate pressure, direction, and speed. Ask for feedback.
Mentorship: Work alongside seasoned clinicians; borrow their clinical eyes and their restraint.
Patient input: Track symptom response session to session. Keep what helps; drop what doesn’t.
Read the evidence: Align techniques with current guidance; know where manual therapy shines and where exercise should lead.
Protect yourself: Use sound body mechanics and micro-breaks to keep your hands durable.
How to Display Manual Therapy Skills on Your Resume
2. Rehabilitation
Rehabilitation restores function after injury, surgery, or illness—measured plans that rebuild capacity, confidence, and the rhythms of daily life.
Why It's Important
It shortens downtime, limits complications, and gets people back to meaningful roles with less pain and more autonomy.
How to Improve Rehabilitation Skills
Personalize everything: Goals, constraints, context. Let testing steer the plan.
Blend tech wisely: Wearables, tele-rehab, outcome dashboards—use them to monitor, not to distract.
Stay current: Update protocols, load progressions, and return-to-activity criteria as the evidence shifts.
Teach patients: Clear explanations reduce fear and skyrocket adherence.
Work as a team: Coordinate with physicians, OT, SLP, and nursing to cover the whole picture.
How to Display Rehabilitation Skills on Your Resume
3. Orthopedics
Orthopedics focuses on the musculoskeletal system—bones, joints, muscles, tendons, ligaments—and the art of guiding them back to resilient function.
Why It's Important
It’s the backbone of outpatient PT. Accurate differential diagnosis and smart loading decide outcomes.
How to Improve Orthopedics Skills
Sharpen assessment: Master red flags, regional interdependence, and when imaging or referral matters.
Program loading: Dose strength, mobility, and tendon/ligament progressions with clarity; progress by criteria, not the calendar.
Follow post-op pathways: Respect tissue healing timelines; communicate with surgeons on precautions and milestones.
Use outcome measures: LEFS, DASH, NPRS, PSFS—track change to steer care.
Coach movement: Modify biomechanics when needed, but don’t chase perfection. Prioritize capacity and tolerance.
How to Display Orthopedics Skills on Your Resume
4. Neurological Care
Neurological care addresses conditions like stroke, TBI, SCI, Parkinson’s disease, and MS—building function through intensity, repetition, and task specificity.
Why It's Important
It targets independence: mobility, balance, upper-limb function, and participation in real life. Small gains can change everything.
How to Improve Neurological Care Skills
Anchor to neuroplasticity: High-repetition, task-oriented training with meaningful goals.
Motor learning principles: External focus, variable practice, and timely feedback beat micromanagement.
Gait and balance mastery: Work on reactive balance, dual-tasking, and community ambulation challenges.
Spasticity and tone: Combine positioning, stretching, strengthening, and, when appropriate, orthoses or medical co-management.
Measure what matters: Berg, FGA, TUG, 6MWT, 10MWT, ABC Scale. Many settings now use Section GG measures rather than FIM—know your metrics.
Collaborate widely: OT, SLP, neuropsychology, and social work amplify outcomes.
How to Display Neurological Care Skills on Your Resume
5. Pediatrics
Pediatric PT serves infants, children, and adolescents—supporting motor development, participation, and play-driven progress.
Why It's Important
Early, well-aimed intervention can reshape trajectories—skills, confidence, family routines.
How to Improve Pediatrics Skills
Specialize intentionally: Seek pediatric-specific coursework and mentoring; learn developmental norms and red flags.
Family-centered care: Coach caregivers; weave home routines into the plan so gains stick.
Make it playful: Use games to drive repetition and problem-solving. Fun multiplies adherence.
Team approach: Coordinate with pediatricians, OT, SLP, orthotists, and schools for seamless support.
Adaptive tools: Orthoses, mobility devices, seating—match equipment to goals and growth.
How to Display Pediatrics Skills on Your Resume
6. Geriatrics
Geriatric PT champions safe mobility, strength, and independence while navigating comorbidities, polypharmacy, and life context.
Why It's Important
Falls, deconditioning, and fear steal freedom. Thoughtful programs give it back.
How to Improve Geriatrics Skills
Prevent falls relentlessly: Screen risk, train balance and reactive stepping, optimize vision/footwear, and simplify home hazards.
Load the system: Progressive resistance training works at any age. Chase power, not just endurance.
Address bone health: Osteoporosis-aware programming and fracture precautions matter.
Think cognition: Dual-task training and simple instructions enhance carryover.
Educate caregivers: Safe transfers, pacing strategies, and equipment fit reduce setbacks.
Coordinate care: Align with primary care and pharmacy about dizziness, orthostatic hypotension, and medication side effects.
How to Display Geriatrics Skills on Your Resume
7. Sports Injuries
From ankle sprains to labral tears, sports injuries demand cool-headed assessment and crisp, criteria-based return-to-play planning.
Why It's Important
Athletes want back in the game yesterday. Smart rehab reduces re-injury and extends careers.
How to Improve Sports Injuries Skills
Acute care: Favor modern guidance like PEACE & LOVE—protect, elevate, avoid anti-inflammatory overload early, compress, educate; then load, optimism, vascular work, exercise.
Assess precisely: Clear differentiation (contractile vs articular vs neural). Use special tests judiciously and compare to sport demands.
Program progression: Strength, mobility, plyometrics, energy systems. Increase volume and intensity with planned, data-driven steps.
Criteria, not clocks: Use strength symmetry, hop tests, tolerance to practice loads, and movement quality to green-light return.
Prevention habits: Warm-ups, workload management, sleep, and technique coaching. Teach what keeps them on the field.
Communicate: Keep coaches, ATs, and physicians aligned to avoid mixed signals.
How to Display Sports Injuries Skills on Your Resume
8. Pain Management
Pain management in PT blends movement, education, and carefully chosen modalities to turn down pain and turn up function.
Why It's Important
Less pain opens the door to training. Training builds capacity. Capacity changes lives.
How to Improve Pain Management Skills
Explain pain: Demystify mechanisms and reassure. Understanding reduces threat and improves buy-in.
Tailor loading: Prescribe exercise that respects irritability while nudging tolerance upward.
Add manual therapy when useful: Use it to modulate symptoms and enable movement practice—not as the whole show.
Use graded exposure: Step toward feared tasks methodically, linking success to confidence.
Leverage tools: Biofeedback, pacing strategies, relaxation, sleep hygiene, and mindful breathing can help regulate the system.
Promote self-management: Simple home strategies and flare-up plans keep progress steady between visits.
Collaborate: Coordinate with pain specialists, behavioral health, and primary care when complexity spikes.
How to Display Pain Management Skills on Your Resume
9. Cardiovascular Conditioning
Cardiovascular conditioning builds the heart–lung engine so patients can do more with less strain.
Why It's Important
Better circulation, better endurance, better durability. It lifts outcomes across diagnoses.
How to Improve Cardiovascular Conditioning Skills
Establish a baseline: Use submax tests like the 6-minute walk to anchor starting loads.
Prescribe aerobic work: Aim for about 150 minutes weekly of moderate intensity or 75 minutes vigorous, adjusted to the individual and medical status.
Use intervals: Alternate harder bouts with easier recovery for efficient gains, when appropriate.
Progress gradually: Increase frequency, duration, then intensity. Track RPE and vitals; heed symptoms.
Add strength: At least two days per week of resistance training amplifies cardiovascular benefits.
Coach habits: Sleep, stress management, nutrition, and activity breaks sustain momentum.
Follow precautions: Screen for contraindications, monitor BP/HR/O2, and coordinate with cardiology as needed.
How to Display Cardiovascular Conditioning Skills on Your Resume
10. Kinesiology Tape
Kinesiology tape is elastic tape applied to support tissues, cue posture or movement, and, at times, modulate pain—without clamping down motion.
Why It's Important
It can provide light, continuous input between sessions, helping some patients move with fewer symptoms and better awareness.
How to Improve Kinesiology Tape Skills
Know the “why”: Clarify indications—edema management, proprioceptive cueing, symptom modulation—not magic fixes.
Prep the skin: Clean, dry, trim hair if needed. Avoid cuts, rashes, and fragile skin.
Master tension: Anchor ends with zero stretch; dose mid-strip tension conservatively and test response.
Choose patterns: I-strips, Y-strips, fans, and space corrections—match the technique to the goal.
Apply and review: Rub to activate adhesive; check comfort and skin after 24 hours. Educate on removal.
Respect contraindications: Allergy, DVT, active infection, poor sensation, or very fragile skin—skip the tape.
How to Display Kinesiology Tape Skills on Your Resume
11. Electrotherapy (e.g., TENS)
TENS and related modalities deliver controlled electrical stimulation through the skin to help with pain and, in some cases, muscle activation.
Why It's Important
It offers a non-drug option to reduce pain and may create a window for productive exercise. Short-term relief, long-term function.
How to Improve Electrotherapy (e.g., TENS) Skills
Individualize parameters: Adjust frequency, pulse width, and intensity based on condition and tolerance.
Place electrodes purposefully: Target dermatomes, peripheral nerves, or around the painful region; document the setup for repeatability.
Combine with active care: Pair TENS with graded exercise or manual therapy to cement gains.
Educate on use: Safety, wear time, skin checks, and expectations—relief is often temporary.
Screen carefully: Consider pacemakers/ICDs, pregnancy, malignancy, impaired sensation, and over carotid sinus as precautions or contraindications.
Track outcomes: If it doesn’t help within a few sessions, pivot.
How to Display Electrotherapy (e.g., TENS) Skills on Your Resume
12. Ultrasound Therapy
Therapeutic ultrasound uses sound waves to deliver mechanical energy to tissues, often with the aim of easing pain or promoting healing.
Why It's Important
It can be a supplemental tool, though evidence is mixed for many conditions. When used, it should serve the bigger plan—active rehab first.
How to Improve Ultrasound Therapy Skills
Select cases wisely: Reserve for indications where benefits are more likely; avoid routine, reflexive use.
Dial in settings: 3 MHz for superficial tissue, 1 MHz for deeper targets; choose continuous vs pulsed based on goals and tissue irritability.
Mind the technique: Keep the sound head moving, use adequate coupling gel, and match the effective radiating area to the treatment zone.
Screen and protect: Avoid over growth plates, eyes, reproductive organs, malignancy, and areas with impaired sensation or circulation.
Measure effect: If it doesn’t change pain or function quickly, discontinue and move on.
How to Display Ultrasound Therapy Skills on Your Resume
