Using technology to help patients facing urinary incontinence and/or constipation.
How do we visualize pelvic floor muscles working? We can’t see them as easily as we can see a bicep curl or squeezing your fist together. But we have a tool in our toolbox to let the therapist and the patient see what those muscles are doing.
Biofeedback is a non-invasive, low-cost method of giving patients a visual to work with muscles that would otherwise go unseen. When asked if patients know how to “Kegel”, we are often met with some hesitancy, confusion, and sometimes inability to engage pelvic floor musculature at all. The inability of a patient to contract or relax the pelvic floor musculature severely limits rehabilitation potential for those suffering from fecal or urinary incontinence secondary to a weakened or overactive pelvic floor.
To assist these patients, we place electrodes on the outside of the body, near the buttock. The patient views a graph on a hand-held device that spikes with engagement of the muscles and falls to a flat line with relaxation of the pelvic floor.
With this signal, patients can learn about relaxation and contraction of the pelvic floor. This can be beneficial for patients with pelvic floor tension in need of relaxation (think constipation), or patients with pelvic floor weakness that need strengthening (think leaking urine or stool). Patients “who received PFME (pelvic floor muscle exercise) with biofeedback, were more likely to have improvement of urinary incontinence, compared with women who received PFME alone.” (1)
Cornerstone Physical Therapy offers biofeedback therapy for pelvic floor patients that otherwise would not have the ability to train their pelvic floor successfully. Unsure if you are doing a Kegel correctly or if you are not able to relax your pelvic floor for bowel movements? Biofeedback could be a key to unlocking the mystery of what those muscles are doing and can help us retrain them to function better.
- Cho ST, Kim KH. Pelvic floor muscle exercise and training for coping with urinary incontinence. J Exerc Rehabil. 2021 Dec 27;17(6):379-387. doi: 10.12965/jer.2142666.333. PMID: 35036386; PMCID: PMC8743604.
