Transport patients to and from treatment areas, lifting and transferring them according to positioning requirements.

“Transport patients to and from treatment areas, lifting and transferring them according to positioning requirements.” is a core task performed by Physical Therapist Assistants. Among the occupation's 21 rated tasks, workers place it 14th by importance (#8 most important). About 100% of workers say it is relevant to their job.

This is a single occupation-specific task statement from O*NET. The figures below describe how central the task is to the job and what independent studies measure about AI and this kind of work — not a prediction that the task will be automated.

Work activities this task rolls up to

O*NET groups concrete tasks into broader work activities shared across many occupations.

• Transport patients or clients. in Performing General Physical Activities
• Assist healthcare practitioners during medical procedures. in Assisting and Caring for Others

AI exposure

The OpenAI / Eloundou “GPTs are GPTs” study rates this task E0. No direct exposure — current language models give little or no time savings on this task.

Exposure measures whether a model could meaningfully speed the task up — it is an estimate of overlap with model capabilities, not a measure of whether the work will be done by software. The study's intermediate score (β) for this task is 0.00. Automation potential label: T0.

Other tasks in this occupation

• Instruct, motivate, safeguard, and assist patients as they practice exercises or functional activities. · importance 4.9
• Document patient information, such as notes on their progress. · importance 4.9
• Observe patients during treatments to compile and evaluate data on their responses and progress and provide results to physical therapist in person or through progress notes. · importance 4.8
• Instruct patients in proper body mechanics and in ways to improve functional mobility, such as aquatic exercise. · importance 4.7
• Secure patients into or onto therapy equipment. · importance 4.6
• Confer with physical therapy staff or others to discuss and evaluate patient information for planning, modifying, or coordinating treatment. · importance 4.5
• Administer active or passive manual therapeutic exercises, therapeutic massage, aquatic physical therapy, or heat, light, sound, or electrical modality treatments, such as ultrasound. · importance 4.4
• Clean work area and check and store equipment after treatment. · importance 4.3
• Communicate with or instruct caregivers or family members on patient therapeutic activities or treatment plans. · importance 4.3
• Measure patients' range-of-joint motion, body parts, or vital signs to determine effects of treatments or for patient evaluations. · importance 4.2
• Train patients in the use of orthopedic braces, prostheses, or supportive devices. · importance 4.2
• Monitor operation of equipment and record use of equipment and administration of treatment. · importance 4.0
• Prepare treatment areas and electrotherapy equipment for use by physiotherapists. · importance 3.9
• Administer traction to relieve neck or back pain, using intermittent or static traction equipment. · importance 3.9

See all tasks on the Physical Therapist Assistants page.

Sources for this page

Every figure above traces to a named public dataset and the exact release below — not hand-written opinion. See the full methodology for what each measure does and does not mean.

• O*NET 30.3 U.S. Department of Labor / National Center for O*NET Development
• “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130 OpenAI / academic

Data compiled June 2, 2026. Figures are estimates, not advice.

@misc{singulariki-task-2016,
  title  = {Transport patients to and from treatment areas, lifting and transferring them according to positioning requirements.},
  author = {{Singulariki}},
  year   = {2026},
  note   = {O*NET 30.3; “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130. Accessed June 7, 2026},
  url    = {https://singulariki.com/tasks/task-2016}
}