Rehabilitation Aide

As a Rehabilitation Aide, you work with disabled patients, helping them stay on track with their regular exercise and other prescribed physical therapy routines to help improve their quality of life. You work under the supervision of a Therapist, and can choose to help patients improve in one of three areas: physical movement, career and independence, or recreation and leisure.

The main goal of a Rehabilitation Aide is to play taxi, transporting patients to the appropriate exercise areas while keeping those areas clean and well organized. The Rehabilitation Aide may assist a single patient with his exercises, or oversee a group of patients participating in a program together.

All three areas of therapy generally involve setting goals for each patient, and planning exercises that he can use to reach milestones. The specific goals, however, vary by therapy type.

Occupational therapy focuses on teaching individuals to support themselves and gain valuable skills necessary for rejoining the workforce. Physical therapy works on improving the patient’s range of movement and decreasing pain. And the last field, recreational therapy, focuses on socializing and leisure. After all, everyone needs a hobby!

In between helping individual patients, you answer phone calls and make appointments. It does little good to have an outstanding physical therapy center if no one can get in to use it. You consult regularly with the patients’ Therapists to check their progress and receive instructions on the day’s activities. Then you provide the patient with the help and encouragement he needs to succeed.