An app for women or men with chronic pelvic pain who are seeing a physiotherapist.
What does the app do?
The app is mainly a library of pelvic floor exercises and self-help techniques including pelvic floor muscle relaxation exercises, diaphragmatic breathing and stretch exercises. The exercises are accompanied by photos and written text. The app also has a symptom tracker features allowing users to track symptoms such as bloating, abdominal pain, bladder pain, etc. The Reminders feature allows users to set reminders to relax their pelvic floor. For the complete app description, go to iTunes or the app website.
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CONS |
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✔ Developed by a very knowledgeable physical therapist that specialises in pelvic pain.
✔ Library of 57 strengthening and stretching exercises (10 pelvic floor/abdominal relaxation, 16 stretches, 7 static stretches, 6 pelvic floor strengthening, 9 pelvic floor/core strength, 4 pelvic floor strength with facilitation, and 5 self-help techniques)
✔ Add exercises and selected associated reps and sets to the favourite section for easy reference.
✔ Symptom and bladder/bowel tracker with graphing
✔ Set reminders
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✘ Images/videos wouldn’t load, and descriptions often directly reference the images making the app much less useful in its current state.
✘ This app would also be much less useful without the direct involvement from a physiotherapist. It provides an indiscriminate list of exercises with no guidance on which might be best for the user’s specific problems.
✘ Last updated 3 years ago (other than copyright changes 1 year ago)
✘ Costs $6.99.
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Review details
Date of review: May 2019
Platform reviewed: Apple
Version: 1.3
Download size: 11.7 MB
Updated on: 4/08/2015
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Pelvic floor exercise apps
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Clinical review
Reviewer: Jeremy Steinberg, GP, RNZCGP
Date of review: May 2019
Comments: Pelvic floor physical therapy is often used for incontinence, pelvic organ prolapses and chronic pelvic pain. This app focuses specifically on physiotherapy for chronic pelvic pain and associated symptoms. The mainstay of physiotherapy treatment for chronic pelvic pain is an individualised program that addresses specific dysfunctions found by the therapist. Programs typically include stretching and therapist or self-directed release of the trigger points (which may include manual release, needling or injections). Contraction exercises are sometimes added in later to the exercise program. This app, developed by an American physical therapist that specialises in pelvic pain, has a library of 57 exercises. The user can add exercises to favourites, set reminders and track symptoms. Unfortunately, the images wouldn’t load for me, making the app less useful. I’m not sure if it was the phone I was using (iPhone SE, iOS 12.2) or that their servers were down. In conclusion, this app might be useful for those with chronic pelvic pain, to be used in conjunction with seeing a pelvic floor physiotherapist.
Safety concerns: No recommendations for when to see a doctor or physiotherapist.
New Zealand relevance: "Physical therapy” and “Physical Therapist” essentially means the same thing as “Physiotherapy” and “Physiotherapist”.
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