Biofeedback is a type of pelvic floor exercise. These are exercises, taught by a physiotherapist or specialist nurse that can help strengthen the muscles used to control the opening and closing of your bowels.
Biofeedback is a tool used for pelvic floor rehabilitation. This technique involves placing a small device in your bottom while doing the exercises. This device provides visual and auditory stimuli, providing you with feedback as to how well you are doing the exercises.
Pelvic floor physiotherapy involves various techniques for retraining the pelvic muscles. This therapy can be used to treat both men and women, who are experiencing any of the following: incontinence, constipation, difficulty with urination or bowel movements, chronic pelvic pain, and painful intercourse.
Pelvic floor therapists might use various techniques including:
What is Bowel Retraining?
A treatment called bowel retraining may sometimes be recommended by a continence specialist.
This is a treatment programme that involves things like:
- making changes to your diet to reduce constipation or diarrhoea
- creating a regular routine for going to the toilet – for example, always going after meals.
- learning ways to help you empty your bowels – for example, having a hot drink or changing how you sit on the toilet.
Biofeedback therapy for functional gut issues involves the use of a range of treatment methods depending on symptoms to help improve bowel emptying and/or control. It is usually a combination of behavioural training, learning how to empty the bowel correctly, diet changes, pelvic floor training and can incorporate the use of neuromuscular or biofeedback devices. For some it may also involve trans anal irrigation, posterior tibial nerve stimulation (PTNS) and emotional support.
Biofeedback therapy at OneWelbeck with Lucy Allen our Pelvic Health Physiotherapist and Biofeedback specialist can include a variety of treatments such as:
- Education – in depth understanding on the diagnosis, function specific to the patient’s problem
- Behavioural training – mind-gut axis
- Defecation dynamics
- Dietary advice and management
- Rectal Balloon Expulsion treatment for rectal sensation rehab
- Trans anal irrigation taught and supplied
- Deferment training/Urge resistance
- Pelvic floor training
- Myofascial and Trigger Point release therapy
- Graded Motor Imagery
- Pain education/management
- Neuromuscular stimulation
- Machine based Biofeedback Therapy
- Emotional support/resilience
- Basic Pharmacotherapy
- Lifestyle modification
- Containment products – renew inserts/coloplast plugs
- PTNS
- A Behavioural treatment strategy incorporating a holistic assessment of both the physical and psychological aspects to the person’s presentation.
