Welcome to the Department of Physical Therapy!

The Department of Physical Therapy provides opportunities for interactive learning in our problem-oriented, competency-based curriculum focused on primary body systems (cardiopulmonary, integumentary, musculoskeletal and neurosensory). The experienced professional faculty provide an exceptional blend of educational, research and clinical expertise for students desiring a career in physical therapy.

Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT)

The Department of Physical Therapy offers a fully accredited, contemporary, 36-month entry-level graduate professional program leading to the Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT). Students begin their lock step, sequenced professional course of study in their first summer term to complete the full-time curricular course of study. Each class cohort is limited to 20 students. The program offers several distinctive opportunities rarely found elsewhere in other Texas physical therapy programs:

• An unparalleled Carr Graduate Scholarship program offering a unique scholarship opportunity to highly qualified students to earn their DPT degree with most tuition and fees paid.
• Excellent faculty-to-student ratio (approximately 1:8).
• 98.7 percent licensure pass rate and 100 percent employment rate of all graduates.
• The most affordable program in the State of Texas.

The ASU physical therapy program was granted full accreditation by the Commission on Accreditation for Physical Therapy Education (CAPTE) on Oct. 30, 2002. The accredited program was initially for a Master of Physical Therapy, but has since converted to a Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT), which gained final approval through the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board on Jan. 29, 2009. The first DPT class will matriculate in the summer of 2009 with the first graduation in May 2012. Current accreditation is in place until June 30, 2018.

Facilities

The Department of Physical Therapy houses state-of-the-science facilities. This includes six skills laboratories available for manual therapy, orthopedic and wound care instruction, electrotherapy, gait analysis and neuroscience. Three dedicated faculty/student research labs, a fine motor motion analysis lab, a gross motor motion analysis lab, a cardiopulmonary lab, and a gait and balance lab are designed to support student experiences and faculty/student research. A new multi-purpose classroom and human anatomy lab have also been dedicated to our program.

Program Comparison

Students should be aware that all physical therapist professional education programs in the United States are subject to accreditation "standards that assure quality and continuous improvement in the entry-level preparation of physical therapists, and reflect the evolving nature of education, research, and practice." While the Education Section of the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) recognizes that there are proprietary organizations that rank physical therapist education programs, the profession encourages prospective students to provide their own comparisons through careful examination of information on program and APTA Web sites, and visits to the campuses to talk with enrolled students and program faculty.