Pelvic Rehabilitation and Stimulation
Who Can Benefit from Pelvic Floor Therapy?
If you suffer from any of the conditions below, Pelvic Floor Therapy may be your non-surgical treatment and cure.
Urinary Incontinence Chronic Pelvic Pain
Overactive Bladder Fecal Incontinence
Interstitial Cystitis Chronic Constipation
Frequent Urination Rectal Pain
Frequent Nighttime Urination Pelvic Floor Prolapse
What Is the Pelvic Floor?
The pelvic floor is a group of muscles that attach to the front, back, and sides of the pelvic bone and sacrum. Like a sling or hammock, these muscles support organs of the pelvis, including the bladder, uterus, and rectum. These muscles also wrap around the urethra, vagina, and rectum. Contracting and relaxing these muscles helps to control bowel and bladder functions. These muscles must relax to allow for urination and bowel movements, and you must be able to relax these muscles during sexual intercourse. Weakness in these muscles is one of the causes of urinary incontinence, and abnormal tension or spasm of these muscles can cause pelvic pain or urinary symptoms.
What Is Pelvic Floor Therapy?
Pelvic floor therapy is a specialized type of physical therapy that helps a woman learn how to contract and relax her pelvic floor muscles. Patients usually visit regularly for 6-8 weeks with a therapist who is specially trained in pelvic floor therapy. The technique used in teaching pelvic muscle exercises is biofeedback therapy.
What Is Biofeedback Therapy?
Pelvic floor biofeedback therapy works by training the brain and pelvic muscles to work together to tighten and relax the pelvic floor muscles. Sensors in the vagina or rectum measure contraction and relaxation of the muscles while the patient receives visual cues on a computer monitor so that she can learn to better use these muscles. In many cases women have tried “Kegel” exercises to strengthen the pelvic muscles without success, but they have not been contracting the proper muscles or they have been contracting them in an improper manner. Many of these women will have more improvement following pelvic floor biofeedback therapy.
What Is Pelvic Floor Stimulation and Rehabilitation?
Some pelvic floor disorders benefit from electrical stimulation therapy. Your therapist will place a sensor/stimulator in your vagina to measure contraction of your pelvic muscles. The strength of your muscle contractions will be displayed on a computer monitor. You will also experience painless, light electrical stimulation of your pelvic muscles, which will cause them to contract. This helps to strengthen the muscles and teaches your brain and your pelvic muscles to work together properly.
Patients Find Pelvic Floor Therapy and Rehabilitation Favorable Because:
• Treatment is non-invasive and painless.
• It has up to an 80% success rate.
• It has no significant side effects.
• It is affordable, compared to other alternatives.
• It is covered by most insurance plans.
Individualized Plan of Care
Depending on your condition, health history, and pelvic floor muscle measurements, a plan of care will be developed for you. Your plan may include any of the following:
1. Pelvic Floor Rehabilitation Through Biofeedback. Sophisticated instrumentation is used to determine that the correct muscle is being contracted, and to show when a muscle is becoming fatigued. Using this information, an exercise plan is developed with specific muscle strengthening instruction, much like a personal trainer in a gym.
2. Pelvic Floor Stimulation. Muscle stimulation aids in muscle re-education and strengthening. Depending on the settings, stimulation may be used to assist you in rehabilitating weak pelvic floor muscles for stress urinary incontinence or fecal incontinence. It may also be used to calm involuntary bladder muscle contraction in the case of overactive bladder. Or, if you suffer chronic pelvic pain, electrical stimulation can be set to reduce muscle spasm and muscle guarding.
3. Bladder Retraining. Once strength is improved, the bladder can be “retrained” to hold a larger volume of urine so bathroom stops are not so frequent.
4. Dietary Changes. Symptoms can sometimes be alleviated with simple dietary modifications.
Home Exercises and Follow Up Visits
You will be asked to perform exercises daily at home, and you will see progress each time you see your therapist. After your initial visit where the treatment plan is established, you will be asked to return to the office for evaluation and therapy visits every week for 3 weeks, then every other week for the next 3 weeks. Visits usually last approximately 45 minutes. A positive change in your symptoms should be noticed in 3-4 visits if this therapy is going to be successful for you. This does not mean you are cured in 3-4 visits, but you should be noticing improvement by this point.
