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Demographics of Physical Therapy Practice: Implications for Education

Background and Purpose. Setting academic priorities for physical therapist professional (entry‐level) education is challenging because of the diversity of clinical practice, of which little is known. The purpose of this study was to determine demographic and diagnostic characteristics of physical therapy patients in the United States in order to more fully describe physical therapy practice. Subjects and Methods. We surveyed a convenience sample of 412 physical therapists about characteristics of their patients. Results. Patients with musculoskeletal conditions (63.4%) were the most common, followed by neurological (25.9%), cardiopulmonary (7.4%), and integumentary (3.3%) conditions. Young adults (28.2%) and middle‐aged adults (35.0%) represented the majority of the respondents' patients, but individuals at either end of the lifespan (<20 yrs=17%, and >75 yrs=20%) were not uncommon. The race of patients receiving physical therapy services was comparable to US and regional population demographics, except in the West, where Hispanic patients (7.5%) were markedly less than regional population demographics (24.3%). Gender differences were also observed, with female patients (55.8%) more common than male (44.2%). Discussion and Conclusion. This study demonstrates that people of both sexes, and of all ages and races are generally, though not always, well represented in physical therapy practice, which supports the continued need for a broad professional physical therapy education curriculum. However, the data also demonstrates that some medical conditions are much more prevalent than others among patients receiving physical therapy services, and these differences should be considered when setting educational objectives and priorities in academic programs.