Safety and Compliance Flashcards
7 cards from real PCE practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 7 Safety and Compliance flashcards as text
A patient in cardiac rehabilitation develops chest pain and diaphoresis during exercise. After stopping activity, the physiotherapist should next:
Answer: Activate the emergency response system immediately
Chest pain with diaphoresis during exercise is a cardiac emergency requiring immediate activation of the emergency response system.
Which situation best illustrates a physiotherapist operating outside their scope of practice?
Answer: Diagnosing a patient with a herniated disc based on clinical examination findings
Medical diagnosis is outside the physiotherapist's scope of practice in the United States; physiotherapists use clinical impressions, not diagnoses.
To comply with Medicare's supervision requirements, a physiotherapy aide providing treatment must be:
Answer: Under direct supervision with the physiotherapist in the room or immediate area
Medicare requires direct supervision of physiotherapy aides, meaning the therapist must be in the immediate area and able to intervene when needed.
A physiotherapist notices spilled ultrasound gel on the treatment floor. The safest immediate action is to:
Answer: Clean up the gel immediately to eliminate the slip hazard
Gel on the floor is an immediate fall hazard and must be removed at once rather than mitigated with temporary measures.
Which condition is an absolute contraindication to the application of cryotherapy?
Answer: Raynaud's phenomenon
Raynaud's phenomenon causes pathological vasospasm in response to cold, making cryotherapy an absolute contraindication.
A physiotherapist is asked to treat a patient whose referral specifies a diagnosis the therapist believes is incorrect based on the clinical evaluation. The appropriate action is to:
Answer: Communicate clinical findings to the referring provider and document the interaction
Professional standards require physiotherapists to communicate discrepancies between the referral and clinical findings to the referring provider.
When a patient refuses a recommended treatment intervention, the physiotherapist must:
Answer: Respect the refusal, document it, and explore alternatives or risks with the patient
Patient autonomy is a fundamental ethical principle; the physiotherapist must respect refusals, document them, and continue patient education.