“That’s Not My Specialty” – Cardiopulmonary Considerations for the Outpatient Non-Cardiopulmonary PT/OT

Course Description

Cardiovascular disease is the single largest cause of death in the United States, killing more than 800,000 people per year. More than 16 million Americans have heart disease and almost 8 million have had a heart attack and 7 million have had a stroke. There is a significant shortage in primary care health care providers and due to this shortage, physical and occupational therapists, and other health care providers, are essential in the screening and management of their patients’ health conditions. There are currently only 507 ABPTS Certified Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Clinical Specialists in Physical Therapy across the country and despite the cardiopulmonary systems being a significant portion of both the national PT and OT licensing exams, many therapists feel uncomfortable with screening for and managing these health conditions in their patients.

This course is geared towards the non-cardiopulmonary PT and OT in the outpatient setting. This course will review current evidence-based practice to improve examination and assessment skills to promote the improved ability to screen for cardiopulmonary conditions and discuss management techniques for co-morbid conditions that patients may present with.

Course Objectives

At the end of this course, the participant will be able to:

• Describe diseases of body systems outside of the cardiopulmonary system that affect or are affected by cardiopulmonary function and describe the PT/OT implications for these conditions
• Describe cardiopulmonary conditions that present with overt non-cardiopulmonary signs and symptoms and be able to describe assessment techniques to develop a simple differential diagnosis
• Explain the differences in cardiopulmonary presentation of men versus women
• Implement simple practice changes to improve cardiopulmonary screening and assessment for all patients regardless of primary diagnosis to improve the health and wellness of all patients.

• Prerequisites

  None

• Educational Level

  Basic

• Other

  Satisfactory completion of this course will require the participant to complete a 10 question post-test with a minimum passing score of 70%.