What is Pelvic Health Physical Therapy?

What is pelvic health physical therapy?

Pelvic health physical therapy is a different type of physical therapy that is aimed to help those with pelvic health dysfunction.

They are typically known as a Women’s Health Clinical Specialist physical therapist.

More information on their role: https://aptapelvichealth.org/

What is pelvic health dysfunction you may ask?

Pelvic health dysfunction can range from anything like urinary/fecal incontinence, pain with sex, problems post pregnancy and a multitude of other diagnoses can fall into this category¹.

Here are some typical diagnoses that pelvic health PT can help with¹:

š  Urinary Incontinence                                  

š  Fecal Incontinence

š  Constipation/IBS

š  Pelvic Organ Prolapse

š  Pelvic Pain

š  Abdominal Pain

š  Testicle Pain, Penile Pain, Scrotal Pain

š  Post prostate, breast, gynecological, colorectal cancers

š  Dyspareunia

š  Vaginismus

š  Vulvodynia

š  Endometriosis

š  PCOS

š  Urinary Retention

š  Pelvic Floor Dysynergia

š  Proctalgia Fugax

š  Pregnancy and Postpartum Related Pain from head to toe

š  Coccyx pain

 

A pelvic health dysfunction usually stems from the bowl of muscles that is within our pelvic floor. This is often overlooked because people tend to think of things “down there” as organs and not so often as muscles. When your knee hurts, doctors tend to look at the muscles surrounding the knee, but this isn’t always the case for pelvic pain. Myofascial (muscle) pain is poorly understood in this realm of the body. If physical therapists can treat other muscles of the body, why can’t they treat muscles of the pelvis?

The pelvic bowl consists of muscles that hold up and support our bladder, uterus, bowel and rectum.

 

(Green, 2019)

 

How do we treat ALL THAT!?

We have a multitude of different techniques to address all of these issues individually.

o   - Manual Therapy both external and internal

o   - Therapeutic exercise

o   - Biofeedback vaginally/rectally/perianal – digitally, sensors, balloons

o   - Modalities to include electrical stimulation vaginally/rectally

o   - Supports – belts, braces

o   - Dilators/wands

o   - Bowel education

o   - Bladder education

o   - Sexual Health education

1. Browning B. The Female Athlete. lecture presented: April 2020

2. Green DJ. Pelvis and Perineum 1 . lecture presented at Smith Hall: July 2019.