PHT1300 – Survey of Pathological Deficits is a course in the physical therapist assistant curriculum covering the disease processes, injuries, and conditions a PTA will encounter, and — critically — what each one implies for treatment. It carries 4 credits at institutions using this title; see the numbering note below, since the credit value tracks the title.
The course answers a question the technique courses do not. Therapeutic exercise teaches how to strengthen a muscle; this course teaches why a stroke patient's weakness is different from a post-surgical patient's weakness, why a diabetic patient's foot requires inspection every session, why a patient on anticoagulants must not be aggressively mobilized after a fall, and why a particular exercise that helps one condition is contraindicated in another. It is where precautions and contraindications come from.
Content covers general pathology — cell injury, inflammation, healing, tissue repair, and the stages of recovery that determine treatment timing; musculoskeletal conditions — fractures, arthritis, tendinopathy, sprains and strains, joint replacement, amputation, and postural conditions; neurological conditions — stroke, traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson disease, cerebral palsy, and peripheral neuropathies; cardiovascular and pulmonary conditions — coronary artery disease, heart failure, hypertension, peripheral vascular disease, COPD, and their exercise implications; endocrine and metabolic disorders — diabetes above all, plus thyroid and obesity; integumentary conditions — wounds, ulcers, burns, and pressure injuries; oncology — cancer, treatment effects, and rehabilitation considerations; immune and infectious disease; rheumatologic conditions; pediatric and geriatric conditions; psychosocial considerations — depression, chronic pain, and adjustment to disability; pharmacology relevant to rehabilitation — common drug classes and their effects on exercise response; and throughout, red flags, precautions, and contraindications.
Offered at Florida institutions with CAPTE-accredited PTA programs.
Florida's PTA employment is among the strongest in the country because the state's retirement population generates sustained orthopedic, neurologic, cardiopulmonary, and wound care volume — which is precisely the content of this course. A graduate here sees the conditions covered in this syllabus daily rather than occasionally.
An unusually clean example of a pattern worth watching in Florida course numbering. The same SCNS number carries different titles and different credit values, and the two correlate:
The broader "survey" version covers more ground and carries the extra credit. SCNS equivalency applies to the same number at the same level, never across numbers — and here the number is the same, so the course transfers, but the credit value may not match a receiving program's requirement. In practice this matters little, because PTA coursework rarely transfers between programs mid-sequence; it matters if a student is comparing programs or reconstructing a transcript. Verify against your own catalog.
The reason it exists, and worth understanding early. A PTA who knows only technique can apply an exercise correctly to the wrong patient. This course supplies the reasoning that prevents that: why the intervention is appropriate, what would make it inappropriate, and what to watch for.
The practical form of that reasoning is precautions and contraindications, and students should study them as a distinct category rather than as details inside condition descriptions. For every condition, be able to answer three questions: what am I not allowed to do, what would make me stop mid-session, and what would make me call the physical therapist right now. That framing turns a large memorization load into a usable clinical checklist, and it is exactly what clinical instructors probe on rotation.
The safety content with the highest stakes. A PTA sees patients frequently — often more often than the supervising physical therapist does — and is therefore well positioned to notice change. Certain findings require stopping and communicating rather than continuing: new or worsening neurological deficit, signs suggesting deep vein thrombosis, chest pain or new shortness of breath, unexplained severe pain, unexplained weight loss, fever, night pain, bowel or bladder change, or any presentation that does not fit the diagnosis.
The PTA does not diagnose and does not alter the plan of care — but recognizing that something is wrong and reporting it promptly is squarely within the role and is a professional obligation. Students should understand this clearly: the failure mode is not overreacting, it is continuing a treatment session with a patient whose condition has changed.
Worth flagging as the single highest-yield condition in the course for practice in this state. Diabetes is extremely common in Florida's patient population, it complicates nearly every other condition, and it generates specific, non-negotiable PTA practices: inspect the feet, know the patient's blood glucose status before exercise, recognize hypoglycemia during a session, understand that peripheral neuropathy means a patient cannot feel injury or a hot modality, and appreciate that impaired healing changes wound and post-surgical expectations.
The same logic applies to the state's other high-prevalence conditions — cardiovascular disease, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis and fall-related fracture, stroke, and dementia. A student who masters the geriatric and metabolic material is well prepared for the actual Florida caseload.
Students consistently report this as one of the heaviest content courses in the PTA curriculum: dozens of conditions, each with presentation, course, management, precautions, and contraindications. Cramming does not survive it, and it does not survive into clinicals either, where the knowledge is needed cold.
What works: spaced repetition daily in small amounts, organizing by system rather than alphabetically, and building comparison tables for conditions that resemble one another (osteoarthritis versus rheumatoid arthritis, the several causes of low back pain, upper versus lower motor neuron signs). Study by scenario rather than by list — given this patient, what do I do differently — because that is how exams ask and how practice works.
PHT1300 normally follows anatomy and physiology (BSC2085C/BSC2086C) and introductory PTA coursework, and precedes or accompanies the intervention courses and the clinical rotations (PHT2810, PHT2820). Admission to a PTA program is limited access and competitive, and the program must be CAPTE-accredited for graduates to sit for the NPTE-PTA and obtain Florida licensure under Chapter 486, F.S. Verify accreditation on CAPTE's own site before enrolling.
Generated September 1, 2026 · Updated September 1, 2026