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Physical Therapy

  • Doctor of Physical Therapy
  • Erie, Pennsylvania
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  • Program Overview

    Physical Therapy is a health care profession that primarily focuses on the preservation, development, and restoration of optimal human movement and function. Physical therapists provide evaluative, rehabilitative, and preventive health care services designed to alleviate pain; prevent the onset and progression of impairment, functional limitation, disability resulting from injury, disease, or other causes; and restore, maintain and promote overall fitness, health and optimal quality of life. Physical therapists work with individuals of all ages who demonstrate movement dysfunction, or the potential for such dysfunction, of the neurological, musculoskeletal, integumentary, and cardiovascular and pulmonary systems.

    Physical therapists practice in a hospital setting, or provide services in out-of-hospital settings through home health agencies, in nursing homes, in industrial settings, through public health agencies, in private physical therapy clinics, in public schools and in a variety of other nontraditional settings.

    The Doctor of Physical Therapy Program at Gannon University in Erie, PA is accredited through June 2029 by the Commission on Accreditation in Physical Therapy Education (CAPTE), 3030 Potomac Ave., Suite 100, Alexandria, Virginia 22305-3085; telephone: 703-706-3245; email: accreditation@apta.org; website: http://www.capteonline.org. If needing to contact the program directly, please call 814-871-5639 or email legters001@gannon.edu. To verify accreditation status, click on the link below:

    Application Procedure

    Gannon University and the Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) Department receives and reviews applications for the Doctor of Physical Therapy program and all applicant credentials through The Centralized Application for Physical Therapy Programs (PTCAS).

    This includes information from all previously attended university or college transcripts, letters of recommendation, and supplemental materials. Full application instructions can be found on the Gannon University page by visiting www.ptcas.org.

    PTCAS

    Financial Aid Awards

    All applicants to the DPT program at the Erie, Pennsylvania campus for the Fall 2023 semester will be automatically considered for financial aid awards.  Admitted students will qualify for awards up to $13,000 per year (renewable for three years). 

    Program Options

    • Doctor of Physical Therapy

Student Learning Outcomes

  • 100% of students will achieve benchmark levels of performance on final grading on examination, evaluation, diagnosis/prognosis, plan of care and Interventions criteria of the Clinical Performance Instrument (CPI) for
  • 100% of students will achieve benchmark levels of performance on final grading for clinical reasoning criterion on the CPI in CE 1-4.
  • 100% of students will achieve benchmark levels on final grading for communication and educational interventions criterion of the CPI in CE 1-4.