BACKGROUND Water immersion delivery is a non-pharmacological approach to ease labor pain. This paper aims to investigate the effect of water immersion delivery on increasing strength of pelvic floor muscle (PFM) and relieving pelvic floor disorders (PFDs) during postpartum period. METHODS A total of 2749 vaginal-delivery primiparas in postpartum 6-8 weeks were selected as research objects. Ba...

UNLABELLED Study Type - Diagnostic (case series) Level of Evidence 4. What's known on the subject? and What does the study add? Pelvic floor muscle training (PFMT) and transvaginal electrical stimulation (TES) are two commonly used forms of conservative treatment for stress urinary incontinence (SUI). PFMT may build up the structural support of the pelvis, but many SUI patients are unable to pe...

The objectives of this study were to examine the effects of voluntary sub-maximal activation of the pelvic floor muscles (PFMs) during singing on PFM strength and compliance with the exercise regime. The participants in this pilot interventional study were a convenience sample of 11 asymptomatic (eight at follow-up) and seven symptomatic (five at follow-up) individuals. The primary outcome meas...

OBJECTIVE The goal of this study is to characterize the phenomenon of evoked tactile sensation (ETS) on the stump skin of forearm amputees using transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS). APPROACH We identified the projected finger map (PFM) of ETS on the stump skin in 11 forearm amputees, and compared perceptual attributes of the ETS in nine forearm amputees and eight able-bodied su...

BACKGROUND Motivated patients are more likely to adhere to treatment resulting in better outcomes. Virtual reality rehabilitation (VRR) is a treatment approach that includes video gaming to enhance motivation and functional training. AIMS The study objectives were (1) to evaluate the feasibility of using a combination of pelvic floor muscles (PFM) exercises and VRR (PFM/VRR) to treat mixed ur...

BACKGROUND Central fat mass (CFM) correlates with insulin resistance and increases the risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular complications; however, peripheral fat mass (PFM) is associated with insulin sensitivity. The aim of this study was to investigate the relation of absolute and relative regional adiposity to insulin resistance index and adipokines in type 2 diabetes. METHODS Total ...

AIMS Compare vaginal resting pressure (VRP), pelvic floor muscle (PFM) strength, and endurance in women with and without diastasis recti abdominis at gestational week 21 and at 6 weeks, 6 months, and 12 months postpartum. Furthermore, to compare prevalence of urinary incontinence (UI) and pelvic organ prolapse (POP) in the two groups at the same assessment points. METHODS This is a prospectiv...

BACKGROUND A precise experimental identification of transcription factor binding motifs (TFBMs), accurate to a single base pair, is time-consuming and diffcult. For several databases, TFBM annotations are extracted from the literature and stored 5' --> 3' relative to the target gene. Mixing the two possible orientations of a motif results in poor information content of subsequently computed pos...

Rehabilitation therapies to treat female stress urinary incontinence focus on the reactivation of pelvic floor muscle (PFM) activity. An objective measure is essential to assess a subject’s improvement in PFM capabilities and increase the success rate of the therapy. In order to provide such a measure, we propose a method for the discrimination of healthy subjects with strong PFM and post-partu...

A dynamic flow model, which maps carrier gas pressures and carrier gas flow rates through the first dimension separation column, the modulator sample loop, and the second dimension separation column(s) in a pulsed-flow modulation comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography (PFM-GCxGC) system is described. The dynamic flow model assists design of a PFM-GCxGC modulator and leads to rapid det...