Course Overview

This 3 day course is designed for licensed health care professionals such as physical and occupational therapists, nurses, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants who are working in the area of pelvic floor dysfunction and looking to expand their knowledge with specific patient populations and treatment considerations. Clinicians will be provided with the rationale and tools to address Sexual Function and Wellness and provide strategies for treatment of Chronic Pelvic Pain. Specific content and detailed information on these topics is provided below.

Understanding Sexual Function and Wellness

The very nature of pelvic floor therapy puts clinicians a unique position to encounter a variety of questions and concerns about sexual function and wellness. This course will help clinicians understand sexual anatomy & physiology, basic sexual psychology, and gain a better understanding of healthy sexual function and common sexual dysfunction. The course is also designed to help clinicians become comfortable talking about sex and sexuality, and develop the skills to answer basic questions, make useful suggestions, and make referrals to the appropriate professionals when needed.

Rehabilitation and Behavioral Therapy for Chronic Pelvic Pain: Integrating Important Mind-Body Strategies with Traditional Muscle Re-education and Manual Therapies.

Neural processes that contribute to central pain sensitization are now thought to play a primary role in the maintenance and/or exacerbation of chronic pain. This course will provide a basic definition of central pain sensitization and outline a rationale for how this process affects pelvic pain syndromes.

This course will summarize some of the current literature in central sensitization as it relates to pain. Then, various behavioral strategies including Progressive Muscle Relaxation, Paradoxical Relaxation, Imagery and Meditation that have been shown to improve chronic pain will be described.

Since evolving theories of neural plasticity and inhibition may provide a rationale as to how these strategies can reduce pain, a critical analysis of the different mind-body strategies will be given so that participants develop an understanding of the most salient components of these methods that can potentially influence pelvic pain. The many mind-body strategies have important differences that clinicians should be aware of when either considering providing such treatment or when referring to other specialties.

Various techniques will be practiced in lab sessions with the purpose of helping therapists smoothly integrate them into their clinic. Examples of how these strategies can be integrated into a pelvic floor clinic will be given in case presentations. Finally resources will be provided so that participants can further explore these potentially useful adjuncts to the treatment of chronic pelvic pain syndromes.

Course Objectives

Participants will learn:

• A better understanding of healthy sexual function and common sexual dysfunction they are likely to encounter in pelvic floor patients
• The skills to comfortably elicit concerns from patients about sexual health and function
• How cancer treatment affects sexual function
• About resources and simple strategies to offer patients to improve sexual health and function
• To list various relaxation and meditation strategies that have been used in the treatment of chronic pelvic pain and IBS to include hypnosis, guided imagery, Paradoxical Relaxation/Progressive Muscle Relaxation, Mindfulness and Insight Meditation.
• To differentiate between the above strategies on the basis of using symbolic or non-symbolic thought, non-judgmental attention to body sensation.
• An overview of pelvic pain treatment protocols that use biofeedback, manual therapy and adjunctive rehabilitation techniques designed to decrease PFM dysfunction and neural central sensitization.
• Practical methods with which to start integrating the various mind-body strategies into their daily clinical practice.