Human pelvic floor muscles have been shown to operate synergistically with a wide variety of muscles, which has been suggested to be an important contributor to continence and pelvic stability during functional tasks. However, the neural mechanism of pelvic floor muscle synergies remains unknown. Here, we test the hypothesis that activation in motor cortical regions associated with pelvic floor...

Background and Objective Botulinum neurotoxin (BoNT), now commonly used for reducing muscular spasms in other neuromuscular disorders, is now increasingly proposed also for treating pelvic floor disorders, including chronic pelvic pain syndromes, vaginismus, vulvodynia and vulvar vestibulitis syndrome. To provide up-to-date information on these advances we reviewed the literature about Bunt inj...

INTRODUCTION Pelvic floor dysfunction is recognized to be related to lower urinary tract dysfunction and to lower gastrointestinal symptoms, and is an influential factor in dysfunction and subsequent behavior of the genital system in both men and women. Caregivers should be informed regarding normal pelvic floor function in general and should be able to identify specific aspects of pelvic floor...

Objectives To determine the lifetime risk of undergoing pelvic floor surgery in a cohort of UK parous women and the re-operation rates for pelvic floor surgery, time intervals for repeat surgery and independent risk factors for undergoing primary and repeat pelvic floor surgery. Study design A register linkage study. Main outcome measures The primary outcome was lifetime risk of parous women ...

BACKGROUND Purpose of the study is to define the role of conventional radiology and MRI in the evaluation of pelvic floor hernias in female pelvic floor disorders. METHODS A MEDLINE and PubMed search was performed for journals before March 2013 with MeSH major terms 'MR Defecography' and 'pelvic floor hernias'. RESULTS The prevalence of pelvic floor hernias at conventional radiology was hig...

Clinical measurement of pelvic floor muscle activity commonly involves techniques that are both physically and psychologically invasive. This study investigated transabdominal application of ultrasound to measure pelvic floor muscle action. The specific aims were to establish the face validity of ultrasound measures of displacement of the posterior bladder wall as a reflection of pelvic floor m...

OBJECTIVE The objective of the present study was to evaluate the effect of pelvic floor muscle training in 46 nulliparous pregnant women. METHODS The women were divided into 2 groups: an exercise group and a control group. Functional evaluation of the pelvic floor muscle was performed by digital vaginal palpation using the strength scale described by Ortiz and by a perineometer (with and with...

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to compare the effectiveness of multimodal supervised physiotherapy programs with the absence of treatment among women with persistent postnatal stress urinary incontinence. METHODS This was a single-blind randomized controlled trial. Sixty-four women with stress urinary incontinence were randomly assigned to 8 weeks of either multimodal pelvic floor rehabi...

Methods One hundred and three nulliparous women attending the routine ultrasound scan at 18 weeks of pregnancy were recruited to the study. Background variables and continence status were registered in a structured interview. Women reporting urinary incontinence once per week or more during the last month were categorised as incontinent. All women were instructed in pelvic floor anatomy and how...

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to determine if two different whole body vibration, sinusoidal vibration (SV) and stochastic resonance vibration (SRV), using various intensities lead to a reactive activation of pelvic floor muscles. STUDY DESIGN We compared the pelvic floor muscle response of a healthy control group with that of a post partum group with weakened pelvic floor contraction. ...