"Physical therapy is not a subspecialty of the medical profession and physical therapists are not medical doctors; we are a separate profession that provides a unique service that physicians are unable and untrained to provide."

Letter to the AMA from the APTA, Dec 2009

Sunday, January 20, 2008

SIMPLE Template Data Collection

The 'how-to' videos are available at www.Physical-Therapy-Videos.com under the link 'Physical Therapy Diagnosis'.

This template is used for data collection.

The physical therapist puts the data into the plan of care and links the measured impairments to the measured functional limitations (using the OPTIMAL).

The data are impairments in ROM and strength that support the Medical Necessity for Physical Therapy.


SIMPLE Template
SIMPLE measurements-------Right Left Expected Normal (n=151)
1)Standing Trunk Sidebending--------------90 degrees
3)Supine FABER------------------------------22cm
4)Supine SLR----------------------------------65 degrees
5)Supine TKE----------------------------------0 degrees
6)Sidelying Hip External Rotation----------23cm
7)Sidelying Hip Internal Rotation-----------29cm
8)Sidelying Hip Extension------------------0 degrees
9)Sidelying Hip Abduction-----------------10 sec.
10)Sidelying Trunk Rotation----------------9cm

(note: this Word document renders poorly into Blogger so the columns for the Right/Left measurements do not show up well. For the PDF document in Word you can go to www.SimpleScore.com

SIMPLE diagnosis

Which measured values are lower than their expected normal values?

Which measured values are asymmetric?

Can you name the impaired motions?

Goal Setting

Improve [side, position, joint and motion] from [measured value] to [expected value].

Free Tutorial

Get free stuff at BulletproofPT.com

Tim Richardson, PT owns a private practice at Medical Arts Rehabilitation, Inc in Palmetto, Florida. The clinic website is at MedicalArtsRehab.com.

Bulletproof Expert Systems: Clinical Decision Support for Physical Therapists in the Outpatient Setting is a manager's workbook with stories, checklists, charts, graphs, tables, and templates describing how you can use paper-based or computerized tools to improve your clinic's Medicare compliance, process adherence and patient outcomes.

Tim has implemented a computerized Clinical Decision Support (CDS) system in his clinic since 2006 that serves as a Reminder, Alerting, Prompting and Predicting CDS using evidence-based tests and measures.

Tim can be reached at
TimRichPT@BulletproofPT.com .

"Make Decisions like Doctors"


Copyright 2007-2010 by Tim Richardson, PT.
No reproduction without authorization.

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Consistent with the American Physical Therapy Association Vision Statement for Physical Therapy 2020, the American Physical Therapy Association supports exclusive physical therapist ownership and operation of physical therapy services.