Usually, when gals come in for their first appointment, it’s gonna be an hour length appointment. That’s the initial evaluation. The biggest chunk of that evaluation is just taking in the information from the patient. What are their complaints?
What are their goals? What do they hope to see improve? Following that, we go into a hands on assessment of muscle imbalances, looking at what muscles are tight or restricted in their hips and pelvis and abdominal muscles, looking for strength and ability to engage so that they can have support during their daily activities. Based on those findings, discuss with a patient what that plan of care looks like, how many times do we plan to meet, how long are those sessions going to be.
You are sent home with specific things to do. Sometimes it’s strengthening exercise, sometimes it’s simply breathing. We oftentimes don’t understand or respect the connection between the diaphragm, which is your breathing muscle, and the pelvic floor. The breath work is so important for, relaxation and normalizing tone in your pelvic floor.
And having a great normal toned toned floor, to start those strengthening exercises is certainly a goal. Once they have the evaluation completed, they look at you and they say, that really wasn’t that bad.
And then they’re thankful because they’re learning what they can do to improve their body functions that they came in to complain about.