Jobs / Healthcare / 31-2022.00
Physical Therapist Aides
Under close supervision of a physical therapist or physical therapy assistant, perform only delegated, selected, or routine tasks in specific situations. These duties include preparing the patient and the treatment area.
- US jobs
- 48,150
- Median wage
- $35,240 a year
- Job family
- Healthcare
Can agents do the work of physical therapist aides?
We read the evidence at the level of the job family, Healthcare:
- Task levelPartialOne benchmark, from early 2025. On Stanford's MedAgentBench, where agents do clinical tasks in a simulated electronic health record, the best recorded model completes 69.7% of tasks (Claude 3.5 Sonnet v2). It has no maintained leaderboard, so newer models are not measured. No benchmark in our collection tests work with patients.
- Project levelPartialOnly adjacent evidence. GDPval includes nurses among its 44 occupations. OpenAI reports that GPT-5.5's deliverables won or tied against professionals' work in 84.9% of comparisons across all occupations. No benchmark in our collection tests clinical work over days, such as managing a patient's care.
Benchmarks for the job family
These cover work in healthcare, not always this occupation's tasks.
- 1846 EloClaude Opus 5.5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort, Default Fallback) · 23 Sep 2026Unrated
Typical tasks
From O*NET 31.0. Core tasks first. Few of these tasks have a benchmark today.
- Clean and organize work area and disinfect equipment after treatment.
- Secure patients into or onto therapy equipment.
- Instruct, motivate, safeguard, or assist patients practicing exercises or functional activities, under direction of medical staff.
- Confer with physical therapy staff or others to discuss and evaluate patient information for planning, modifying, or coordinating treatment.
- Observe patients during treatment to compile and evaluate data on patients' responses and progress and report to physical therapist.
- Change linens, such as bed sheets and pillow cases.
- Administer active or passive manual therapeutic exercises, therapeutic massage, or heat, light, sound, water, or electrical modality treatments, such as ultrasound.
- Transport patients to and from treatment areas, using wheelchairs or providing standing support.
- Perform clerical duties, such as taking inventory, ordering supplies, answering telephone, taking messages, or filling out forms.
- Schedule patient appointments with physical therapists and coordinate therapists' schedules.
- Arrange treatment supplies to keep them in order.
- Assist patients to dress, undress, or put on and remove supportive devices, such as braces, splints, or slings.
Other job titles for this occupation (15)
Physical Therapist Aide (PTA) · Physical Therapy Aide (PTA) · PT Attendant (Physical Therapy Attendant) · PT Tech (Physical Therapist Technician) · PT Tech (Physical Therapy Technician) · Rehabilitation Aide · Rehabilitation Attendant · Rehabilitation Technician (Rehabilitation Tech) · Restorative Aide (RA) · Therapy Aide · Aide · Outpatient Aide · Outpatient Therapy Aide · Physiotherapy Aide · Rehabilitation Therapy Aide