Pelvic floor therapy is a specialty in physical therapy that focuses on more than the pelvic floor and can include the muscles and fascia in the pelvis hips back and thorax or.
What is done during pelvic floor physical therapy.
Many pelvic floor conditions can be managed and healed without surgery.
Seeing a physical therapist pt or an occupational therapist ot who is trained as a pelvic floor therapist may help you better understand your symptoms and design a personalized program to help alleviate your pelvic discomfort or pain through retraining and strengthening your muscles.
However most of the tool are designed to strengthen improve control of and relax pelvic floor muscles ultimately reducing pain.
Most of the therapists are physical therapists and that is the assumption for this article.
The elephant in the room with pelvic floor physical therapy is the internal exam treatment.
Physical therapists draw from a collection of technologies and tools during pelvic floor therapy depending on what is best for the patient s specific condition.
So when they re prescribed physical therapy pt for a pelvic floor related problem such as pelvic pain or incontinence after anal cancer treatment they simply do not understand how physical therapy something they may have done before in a gym like setting will help them.
Pelvic floor physical therapy involves the pelvic floor muscle group which is responsible for a variety of functions.
What exactly do pelvic floor physical therapists do.
Pelvic floor physical therapy can also combat general pelvic pain incontinence both urinary and fecal tailbone pain and constipation says lauren tadros a physical therapist at nyu langone.
It can seem a little daunting especially if you have pelvic floor pain but pelvic floor therapists are trained to be as thorough as possible while minimizing discomfort.
We spent the first 20 minutes talking about my history.
Pelvic floor pt s are actually just your everyday orthopedic physical therapists who have taken extensive continuing education courses in order to treat your pelvic floor.
These muscles support the pelvic organs assist in bowel and bladder control and contribute to sexual arousal and orgasm.
Kristin christensen a physical therapist pt who specializes in pelvic floor disorders then brought me back to the exam room.
Pelvic floor physical therapy or rehab can help men recover from incontinence after prostate surgery and from pelvic pain.
But to be fair to you we are still going to use our orthopedic knowledge during the evaluation and follow up treatments.
Why see a pelvic floor therapist.