Pelvic floor therapy seems to be a buzz word these days. It seems like every PT practice and every urogynecologist and OBGYN office is starting to offer pelvic floor therapy. But how do you know who you should go to? Should you just take the advice of your Doctor and use their office for your rehab? Let’s dive into what it takes to be a qualified pelvic floor therapist.

Pelvic floor therapy is unfortunately not a protected term, meaning that anyone that performs treatment targeted at the pelvic floor muscles can say that they are providing pelvic floor therapy. This can be a trainer, nurse, aide, tech, licensed therapist, the list goes on and on.

True pelvic floor therapy is conducted by a licensed physical or occupational therapist as it is a form of rehabilitative therapy. Speaking from a physical therapist perspective, physical therapists get a Doctor of Physical Therapy and their education includes learning about biomechanics (how our joints move), performing cadaver dissections to gain a full understanding of the musculoskeletal system, learning about how muscles truly strengthen (from a cellular level), gaining an understanding of the nervous system and what it actually takes for someone to learn how to do a new task, and become experts in various assessment and treatment techniques. Upon graduation, physical therapists can then pursue specialities, one of which is pelvic health. Those physical therapists that decide to focus their career on pelvic health then take a plethora of pelvic health specific post-doctoral courses to continue to gain knowledge in treatment of pelvic floor conditions. There are hundreds of pelvic floor courses through various education agencies and there is no way one person could take all of the courses in their career.

Pelvic floor therapy at a place other than a physical therapist’s office is typically done with an aide, tech or nurse typically involves patients doing a lot of kegels with a modality called biofeedback (or electrical stimulation) treatment (to learn more about biofeedback click here). These individuals were typically trained at a weekend long course and their depth of knowledge about how the pelvic floor functions during movements like squatting, running and lifting is extremely limited. Since PTs and OTs are movement professionals and help patients function better, their treatments will be much more applicable to your daily functions and activities.

If you are looking for pelvic floor therapy you need to make sure it is with a licensed physical or occupational therapist. If you are looking for someone qualified in your area, click here.