Category: Education

Got pelvic health problems? There’s an app for that!

~ jesspreale ~ 11 Comments

Technology in our current time is incredible. With our smartphones so quickly at our finger tips, we have apps for pretty much everything. Need to find a good restaurant near by? There’s an app for that. Want to quickly edit your photos into beautiful photo masterpieces? Just download the app. Last year over Christmas, I even found an app that turned anyone’s face into Santa Claus. (The results were amazing if you’re wondering).

And pelvic health is no different. There are so many apps available for people with pelvic problems or for general men’s and women’s health needs. I absolutely love apps for my patients that help them with the problems they’re experiencing or enhance their home programs. Here are some of the great ones out there! (Note: Special thanks to my colleagues on the Women’s Health Physiotherapy Facebook Group who added their suggestions to this list. I plan to keep this updated regularly so it can be a great resource for colleagues and our wonderful patients!) Enjoy!

Apps

 

Bladder/Bowel problems:

  • iDry: Free version includes a tracker for pad usage and bladder leakage. Premium version includes options for interventions (including pelvic floor exercises!), a more detailed chart tracker, reminders, and options to send to your health care providers!
  • UroBladderDiary: This app costs $1.99 but allows tracking of urinary frequency and volumes, leakage, and fluid intake. Also allows tracking of urgency level. Allows conversion to a PDF to e-mail to health care provider.
  • Bathroom Map: For those struggling with strong urinary or bowel urgency and/or incontinence, this app may become your best friend! It uses your location to quickly identify all of the restrooms nearby. It also grades each bathroom as green, yellow or red to indicate the availability of the restroom, comfort and cleanliness of the facility.
  • Poo Keeper: This app is a  quick tracker for someone struggling with bowel problems. Allows you to snap a quick photo of your stool and track your stool consistency.
  • BM Classic: For those with bowel problems, this app not only allows you to track your bowel frequency and stool consistency (using the awesome Bristol Stool Scale), but also allows you to track stress level, water intake, and dietary habits. Could be a great resource for someone struggling with bowel problems.

Pelvic Floor Exercises:

  • Squeezy: This app was designed by pelvic physiotherapists in the UK and is endorsed by the NHS. It allows for a personalized exercise program, has reminders, visuals and keeps a record.
  • Kegel Trainer: This app includes information on how to use pelvic floor muscles, and has various levels of exercise based on different contraction/relaxation intervals. Free version only includes first level, paid goes up to 15 levels. Includes reminders and an exercise tracker.
  • Pelvic Floor First: This is an awesome organization out of Australia, and I have used their website and handouts frequently for my clients for the past several years. Their app definitely does not disappoint! It offers a nice progressive exercise routine for someone struggling with pelvic floor weakness (like we commonly see with urinary incontinence, pelvic organ prolapse, and postpartum difficulties). The programs go from Starting Out (30 min), Moving On (40 min) to Stepping Up (50 min). Just be sure to chat with your pelvic PT before you jump in the program!
  • If you prefer a device for strengthening (and your pelvic PT thinks that would be helpful to you!), the following are apps that sync to insertable devices: Pericoach, Elvie, KGoal
  • BWOM: This app is great because it starts with a short quiz to help identify where someone may have a pelvic floor problem. It then has exercise programs (available for a small $$) based on that problem, including relaxation exercises! Designed by pelvic physios.
  • GoldMuscle: This app is focused on improving sexual performance rather than on those who may have pelvic health problems, so definitely has a different look to it. It includes various programs to focus on both endurance and quick contractions of pelvic floor, allows you to track progress, and get reminders for your exercises.

Pelvic Pain/Relaxation Apps:

  • RelaxLite with Andrew Johnson: This is one of my personal faves. Basically, it’s a 10-15 min guided progressive relaxation. He has a paid version too with lots of additional upgrades, but the free meditation is great!
  • Headspace: Free version includes a free 10 minute meditation to teach basics of meditation. Upgrade provides access to tons of different meditation options. Great way to start learning meditation.
  • Calm: Another great meditation app. Free version includes the “7 days of Calm” introductory program to learn the basics of mindful meditation, and also incluees access to soothing sounds to help relieve stress. Upgrade allows access to all of the different meditation programs (for sleep, calm, etc)
  • Insight Timer: Meditation community app, includes a timer to track meditation with different sound options, and includes over 1300 guided meditations. Also includes discussion groups and meet-up groups.
  • Binaural- Pure Binaural Beats:  This app allows you to listen (use headphones) to various sounds to promote brain wave activity correlated with relaxation, meditation, problem solving and activity. And all of it’s free!

Women’s Health: 

  • iPeriod: Paid versions only. Use to track periods, ovulation and fertility; Graphs of data available and includes availability to export data to take to physician visits. Lots of personalization options too!
  • Clue: Period tracker that predicts dates for your next period, and also allows you to track symptoms as they relate to your cycle (including pain, which is awesome!)
  • My Days: This app tracks and predicts periods, ovulation and fertility. Also allows options to track basal metabolic temperature, cervical mucus and cervix for those trying to become pregnant.

Pregnancy/Postpartum:  

  • Pregnancy Pelvic Floor Plan: This app by the Continence Foundation of Australia has both a tracker to see weekly milestones during pregnancy, but also has great information on pelvic floor health. Includes option to receive regular reminders to perform pelvic floor exercises.
  • Gentle Birth: This app promotes a positive pregnancy and birth experience. Includes mindfulness, breathing techniques, affirmations and hypnosis, combined with evidence based research. Customized programs based on the woman’s needs. Free for a sample program, then requires paid subscription.
  • Mind the Bump: Meditation app geared toward pregnancy/postnatal populations. Includes different meditations for different periods of time (first trimester-postpartum)
  • Pregnancy Exercise- Weekly Workout: This app by Oh Baby! Fitness (based out of Atlanta, and generally very evidence-based!) includes a new exercise for every week of pregnancy based on pilates, yoga and strength training. Through 10 weeks is free, then $5 to unlock the rest of the weeks.
  • Rost Moves: This app provides recommendations for body mechanics/movement options when performing different regular home activities. Especially a great app for new moms or pregnant women with pelvic girdle/low back pain.

Hope  you found this helpful! Did I miss any of your favorite apps?? Let me know in the comments below! I plan to update this page regularly for new apps we discover! Have a great week! ~ Jessica

Your Brain is Playing Tricks on You (Part 1): Visual Illusions

~ jesspreale ~ 2 Comments

Falling in love is an incredible feeling, isn’t it? One we don’t tend to forget very quickly. At least, that’s how it was for me and Neuroscience. I remember clearly when the falling in love started to take place. Junior year in college, reading a book called  by V.S. Ramachadran, Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind,
for my Neuroanatomy and Physiology of Human Movement class. I remember being glued to that book from cover to cover, only stopping briefly to write down a quick quote or call my parents to tell them the amazing piece of information I just learned (Yes, I still call them to tell them fun things like that :))

The amazing thing, that I’m sure you are realizing too, is that our brains are simply incredible. We have the ability to take in millions of tiny pieces of information in microseconds, integrate it within everything we believe to be true about our world and the universe and then make decisions on what that information means. It’s incredible, really. But did you know that this ultimate perception can lead to misinformation? Did you know your brain can really really mess with you?

Optical Illusions

One of the most well-known tricks of the brain is an optical illusion. Do you see a bunny or a duck?

Illusions DuckBunny

Which square is darker, A or B? (They’re actually the same color!)

128px-Optical_illusion
By Wuhazet – Henryk Żychowski (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

So, how did your brain trick you? Your nervous system is constantly gathering information about the body and the environment through multiple different inputs: visual, mechanical, temperature, proprioceptive (the position of your joints), vestibular (your inner ear). This process is called sensation. Perception, then, is your brain’s interpretation of the information it receives. The brain receives and filters the information from various sensors and then interprets its meaning to create our experience. In these cases, your brain receives the signal (visual input) and then perceives meaning based on the information, and your experience. In the first picture, your brain likely can see either a duck or a bunny depending on how it chooses to interpret the information. In the second one, your brain took into account the shadow that the green cylinder was casting on the board– thus, your brain tricked you into thinking that tile B must be lighter than tile A (although, really they are the same!) And the third one, your brain saw the arrows in the first one as narrowing in the space, and the second as expanding it–even though the lines are the same length. Pretty cool, right?!

Magic Tricks 

I have always loved a good magic trick. I remember seeing my first “real” magic show in Las Vegas at Harrah’s Casino. I was 11 or 12 I think, and was completely mesmerized by Mac King and his comedy magic show. My family just loved it! We were amazed, and couldn’t figure out how he did what he did.

(This is actually pretty close to what that magic show looked and felt like–so enjoy being transported back to 12-year old Jessica’s life!) 

I still love watching a great magic show. From street magicians like David Blaine to bigger than life magicians like David Copperfield or Siegfried and Roy, magicians have the ability to suspend our belief, challenge our perceptions and allow us to believe we are seeing the impossible.

So what are magic tricks? How do they feel so “real” to us watching?

In a way, magic tricks are very similar to optical illusions. Magicians are truly masters at using the brain to fool us into truly seeing something that did not happen. Magic tricks work based on several key principles. First, as we discussed above, your brain constantly creates perceptions based on the sensory inputs it receives from the environment. As was shown in our “illusions” section, the perception does not always directly match the visual input as our brain integrates vision with our previous knowledge, emotions, experiences, etc. to make predictions and ultimately create perception. These predictions are precisely what is exploited during magic tricks. This great article gives the example of the “vanishing ball” trick. In this trick, the magician throws the ball up in the air several times, and finally on the last one, the ball appears to vanish out of the air. But did it really vanish? Of course not! The magician used our brain’s predictions in his favor…thus, we saw the magician continuing to look up toward the ball, we saw the hand move in a “throwing pattern.” and the brain cut a few corners to tell us the ball had been thrown! While we’re busy watching that magician’s face, the ball is then palmed away, and our brain perceives it has vanished! Pretty cool, right? (check out the article for a larger, more detailed explanation!)

Magic tricks also work by confusing our brain with conflicting inputs and playing with our attention. For example, we are much more easily tricked and distracted when we have to multitask and focus on multiple different things at once. This is common with card tricks and other illusions. Emotions (such as humor, story-telling, etc) can also lead to some brain-trickery as it again creates a distraction for the brain, forcing the brain to “predict” to fill in the missing pieces.

It’s really, quite incredible, and learning about all of this actually has made me respect magicians even more as fellow neuroscientists! Check out these excellent articles if you want to dive a little deeper and further understand more of what happens with magic tricks!

Now…You may be thinking… “What the heck Jessica? This is a “pelvic-focused” blog! Why are you writing about optical illusions and magic tricks!?” Well my dear blog reader, you’ll have to find out… Stay tuned for Part 2- Your Brain is Playing Tricks on You: Pain

Book Review: A Guide to Better Movement

~ jesspreale ~ 2 Comments

One of my New Year’s resolutions was to build a better morning routine to help me use my time more optimally during the day. Part of that morning routine includes reading for 30 minutes over breakfast…and I have to tell you, it’s my most favorite part of the day. My first book of the year was Todd Hargrove’s  A Guide to Better Movement, and I really really loved it. So much so, that I just needed to share it with you!

Guide to Better MOvementI was first introduced to Todd Hargrove through his blog post back in October, “Why do muscles feel tight?” I loved it, was hooked, and ordered his book the same day. Todd is a pretty smart guy, and has a unique background being a prior attorney and current Rolfer and Feldenkrais practitioner. I love learning from people who are not physical therapists because I find it challenges my viewpoints and helps me to see my clients from a different perspective. Todd’s book did not disappoint.

Who should read it? 

  • Anyone who likes moving, should move, and wants to move better
  • Athletes (yes, this includes any of you who exercise regularly) who want to make sure they are caring for their bodies
  • People experiencing persistent pain
  • Practitioners working with humans who move
  • (Is that broad enough for you?)

What are the details? 

  • Available on Amazon.com for $17.95, paperback  (Click here: A Guide to Better Movement: The Science and Practice of Moving With More Skill And Less Pain)
  • Length: 277 pages, broken into the following sections:
    • Introduction
    • Part 1: The Science of Moving Better
      • Defining Better Movement
      • Learning Better Movement
      • The Brain Maps the Body
      • Motor Development and Primal Patterns
    • Part 2: The Science of Feeling Better
      • The Science of Pain
      • Movement and Threat: Central Governors
      • Movement, Thinking and Feeling
    • Part 3: The Practice of Moving Better and Feeling Better
      • Strategies to Move Better and Feel Better
      • Lessons in Better Movement (pgs 149-277)

What’s so great about it? As you may know, my studies recently have sent me deep into the world of neuroscience, so I love reading books that integrate the whole body rather than just focusing on specific tissues. Hargrove does an excellent job of not only teaching the science related to movement and pain in a way that is easily understandable by clinicians and patients alike, but also offers strategies and lessons for improving movement and shifting away from a pain state. He uses excellent analogies throughout his book that all people will be able to relate to and understand. On another note, his book is full of great quotes… and I’ve always been a sucker for a good quote… so you’ll see some of my favorites here :).

In the first part, the science of moving better, Hargrove discusses the essential qualities of good movement (coordination, responsiveness, distribution of effort, division of labor, position and alignment, relaxation and efficiency, timing, variability, comfort and individually customized). I especially love his section on relaxation and efficiency as I believe this to be a huge factor for the men and women I treat experiencing chronic pelvic pain. So often, these people end up in states of chronically over-activating musculature to perform tasks, and I believe changing this can make a big difference for them. “Efficient movement requires skill in relaxation… thus developing movement skill is often more about learning to inhibit the spread of neural excitement rather than extending it.” 

Next, he goes on to explain the process for learning better movements diving in to the motor control system, and then explains how the brain maps the body and the ways in which those maps can change over time. “The current organization of [a person’s]  sensory  maps already reflects a lifetime of effort to organize them in an optimal way to perform functional goals.”  He uses a great analogy here of a skiier going down a hill. The first trip down, the person has endless options on the path to take down…but after going again, and again, deep grooves in the snow are formed and it can be difficult to take alternate paths.

downhill skiing

Lastly in this section, he discusses motor development and primal movement patterns and the importance of training foundational movements with large carryover into a variety of functional tasks.

Part two, the science of feeling better goes into our favorite topic–pain science. Hargrove does a fantastic job of explaining pain and gives a plethora of examples and analogies to help the reader understand very advanced topics. Two of my faves from this section are,”Although nociception is one of the most important inputs contributing to pain, it is neither necessary nor sufficient for pain to exist,” and, “Pain is an action signal, not a damage meter.” This section also explores different options for moving past pain and discusses how the central nervous system responds with threat in order to protect the body. The last chapter in this section looks at movement and emotion and explains the way we now understand the mind to relate to the body. (Hint: the mind and the body are ONE).

The last section of this book, the practice of moving better and feeling better discusses strategies for improving movement and key components of training movement variety. Hargrove summarizes his thoughts on this in the following way, “Move playfully, experimentally and curiously, with full attention on what you are doing and what you are trying to accomplish. Focus on movements that are the foundation for your movement health, and have a lot of carryover to many activities, as opposed to movements that are specific and don’t have carryover. Move as much as you can without injury, pain or excess threat, wait for the body to adapt, and then move more next time.” 

Hargrove ends the book by providing 25 lessons to help improve movement. These are based on the Feldenkrais Method (which I liked as I currently use some of these principles and movements within my clinical practice.). Each lesson offers options for progressing and provides guidance for attention and variations.

So, in summary…. I loved this book. I have already recommended it to clients, and plan to use some of the movement lessons within my practice. I hope you love it too!

Have you read any other great books recently? I’m looking for my next one to read! 

~ Jessica

Guest Post: Rib cage position, breathing and your pelvic floor

~ jesspreale ~ 3 Comments

I am thrilled today to have my colleague and friend, Seth Oberst, PT, DPT, SCS, CSCS (that’s a lot of letters, right?!), guest blogging for me. I have known Seth for a few years, and have consistently been impressed with his expansive knowledge and passion for treating a wide range of patient populations (from men and women with chronic pain, to postpartum moms, and even to high level olympic athletes!) Recently, Seth started working with me at One on One in Vinings/Smyrna, which is super awesome because now we get to collaborate regularly in patient care!  Since Seth started with us, we have been co-treating several of my clients with pelvic pain, diastasis rectus, and even post-surgical problems, and Seth has a unique background and skill set which has been extremely valuable to my population (and in all reality, to me too!). If you live in the Atlanta area, I strongly recommend seeing Seth for any orthopedic or chronic pain problems you are having–he rocks! So, I asked Seth to guest blog for us today…and he’ll be talking about your diaphragm, rib cage position, and the impact of this on both the pelvis and the rest of the body! I hope you enjoy his post! ~ Jessica 

The muscles of the pelvic floor and the diaphragm (our primary muscle of breathing) are mirror images of each other. What one does so does the other. Hodges found that the pelvic floor has both postural and respiratory influences and there’s certainly a relationship between breathing difficulty and pelvic floor dysfunction. (JR note: We’ve chatted about this before, so if you need a refresher, check out this post) So one of the best ways we can improve pelvic floor dysfunction is improving the way we breathe and the position of our ribcage. Often times, we learn to breathe only in certain mechanical positions and over time and repetition (after all we breathe around 20,000 times per day), this becomes the “normal” breathing posture.

Clinically, the breathing posture I see most commonly is a flared ribcage position in which the ribs are protruding forward. This puts the diaphragm in a position where it cannot adequately descend during inhalation so instead it pulls the ribs forward upon breathing in. The pelvis mirrors this position such that it is tipped forward, causing the muscles of the pelvic floor to increase their tension. (JR note: We see this happen all the time in men and women with pelvic pain!) Normal human behavior involves alternating cycles of on and off, up and down, without thinking about it. However, with stress and injury we lose this harmony causing the ribs to stay flared and the pelvis to stay tilted. Ultimately this disrupts the synchrony of contraction and relaxation of the diaphragm and pelvic floor, particularly when there is an asymmetry between the right and left sides (which there often is).

Rib Flare PRI

Rib PRI

Jessica has written extensively on a myriad of pelvic floor issues (this IS a pelvic health blog, after all) that can be caused by the altered control and position of the rib cage and pelvis that I described above. But, these same altered positions can cause trouble up and down the body. Here are a few ways:

  1. Shoulder problems: The ribcage is the resting place for the scapulae by forming a convex surface for the concave blades. With a flared, overextended spine and ribs the shoulder blades do not sit securely on their foundation. This is a main culprit for scapular winging (something you will often see at the local gym) because the muscles that control the scapulae are not positioned effectively. And a poorly positioned scapula leads to excessive forces on the shoulder joint itself often causing pain when lifting overhead.
  2. Back pain: When stuck in a constant state of extension (ribs flared), muscles of the back and hips are not in a strong position to control the spine subjecting the back to higher than normal forces repeatedly over time. This often begins to manifest with tight, toned-up backs that you can’t seem to loosen with traditional “stretches”.
  3. Hip impingement: With the pelvis tilted forward, the femurs run into the pelvis more easily when squatting, running, etc. By changing the way we control the pelvis (and by association the rib cage), we can create more space for the hip in the socket decreasing the symptoms of hip impingement (pinching, grinding sensation in groin/anterior hip). For more on finding the proper squat stance to reduce impingement, read this.
  1. Knee problems: An inability to effectively control the rib cage and pelvis together causes increased shearing forces to the knee joint as evidenced in this study. Furthermore, when we only learn to breathe in certain positions, it reduces our ability to adapt to the environment and move variably increasing our risk for injury.
  2. Foot/ankle: The foot and pelvis share some real estate in the brain and we typically see a connection between foot control and pelvic control. So if the pelvis is stuck in one position and cannot rotate to adapt, the foot/ankle complex is also negatively affected.

So, what can we do about this? One of the most important things we can do is learn to expand the ribcage in all directions instead of just in the front of the chest. This allows better alignment by keeping the ribs down instead of sacrificing position with every breath in. Here are few ideas to help bring the rib cage down over the pelvis and improve expansion. These are by no means complete:

**JR Note: These are great movements, but may not be appropriate for every person, especially if a person has pelvic pain and is at an early stage of treatment (or hasn’t been treated yet in physical therapy). For most clients, these exercises are ones that people can be progressed toward, however, make sure to consult with your physical therapist to help determine which movements will be most helpful for you! If you begin a movement, and it feels threatening/harmful to you or causes you to guard your muscles, it may not be the best movement for you at the time. 

**JR Note: This squat exercise is very similar to one we use for men and women with pelvic pain to facilitate a better resting state of the pelvic floor. It’s wonderful–but it does lead to a maximally lengthened pelvic floor, which can be uncomfortable sometimes for men and women who may have significant tenderness/dysfunction in the pelvic floor (like occurs in men and women with pelvic pain in the earliest stages of treatment).

Here’s another one I use often from Quinn Henoch, DPT:

Our ability to maintain a synchronous relationship between the rib cage and pelvis, predominantly thru breathing and postural control, will help regulate the neuromuscular system and ultimately distribute forces throughout the system. And a balanced system is a resilient and efficient one.

Seth-Oberst

Dr. Seth Oberst, DPT is a colleague of Jessica’s at One on One Physical Therapy in Atlanta, GA. He works with a diverse population of clients from those with chronic pain and fatigue to competitive amateur, CrossFit, professional, and Olympic athletes. Dr. Oberst specializes in optimizing movement and behavior to reduce dysfunction and improve resiliency, adaptability, and self-regulation.

 

For more from Seth check out his website and follow him on Twitter at @SethOberstDPT

Save the Date: Winter Webinars on Pelvic Health 11/5 and 12/10!!

~ jesspreale ~ 5 Comments

First and foremost, Happy Halloween!!

halloween-979495_1280

I am thrilled to have the opportunity to present TWO webinars over the next few months with Therapy Network Seminars! The first, “Introduction to Pelvic Floor Rehabilitation” will be next Thursday, 11/5 8:00 – 9:30 p.m. EST and will provide introductory information about pelvic floor anatomy and function, common diagnoses related to pelvic floor dysfunction, basic information on what pelvic PT really involves, how to screen for pelvic floor dysfunction in YOUR patients, AND most importantly, how you can begin to integrate the pelvic floor into treatment the very next day!

Then, on 12/10 8:00 – 9:30 p.m. EST, I will be presenting on “Pelvic Floor Dysfunction in the Adult Athlete.” This webinar will dive deeper into the role of the pelvic floor in stability and will explore the relationship between the pelvic floor and the other deep stabilizers around the pelvis. We will also discuss how to integrate the pelvic floor and the diaphragm within functional core stabilization, common diagnoses related to pelvic floor dysfunction in the adult athlete, and specific key components to be addressed for women returning to athletics postpartum.

I am super excited to be presenting these webinars, and I hope some of you will join me!!

Register today for the early bird discounted rate of $31!!

Sign up for “Introduction to Pelvic Floor Rehabilitation” LIVE Webinar, Thursday 11/5 8:00 – 9:30 p.m. EST 

Sign up for “Pelvic Floor Dysfunction in the Adult Athlete” LIVE Webinar, Thursday 12/10 8:00 – 9:30 p.m. EST