Biofeedback
Biofeedback is a powerful tool that uses visual and auditory feedback to help you better understand and coordinate your pelvic floor muscles. It may be used when the goal is to improve pelvic floor activation, such as after prostatectomy, with pelvic organ prolapse, or in some cases of urinary or fecal incontinence. It can also be used when the pelvic floor needs to relax more effectively, including with painful intercourse, urinary hesitancy, or dyssynergic defecation.
Internal or external sensors collect information from the pelvic floor and turn that information into a visual display you can see. An additional external sensor may also be placed over the abdominal muscles to help assess coordination, timing, and recruitment patterns.
What We May Look At
- Resting activity: how active or “busy” the pelvic floor muscles are at rest.
- Recruitment: how effectively you can activate the pelvic floor muscles.
- Relaxation: how effectively you can let the muscles release and turn off.
- Coordination: how the pelvic floor responds during breathing, graded contractions, quick contractions, relaxation, and bearing down for a bowel movement.
Biofeedback does not deliver electrical stimulation into your body. The sensors simply collect information from your muscles and display that information so you and your therapist can better understand what the pelvic floor is doing.
Biofeedback is most useful when the information is immediately connected to a functional task. This helps translate what you learn during treatment into movement strategies and exercises that can carry over into daily life and your home program.