Pain in Women With Chronic Pelvic Pain

Postural control will be assessed using the Mini-BESTest, a 14-item test that focuses on dynamic balance, specifically anticipatory transitions (six items), reactive postural control (six items), sensory orientation (six items), and dynamic gait (10 items). Each item is scored from 0 to 2; a score of 0 indicates that a person is unable to perform the task, whereas a score of 2 is normal. The best score is the maximum amount of points, being 28.

The nervous assessment is measured with neurodynamic tests. This is used to test upper and lower extremities. It moves most of the nerves between the neck and legs, including the spinal nerves and lower limbs nerves. The patient is placed in supine position. It is measured with a goniometer.

The spinal assessment is going to be performed using the Spinal Mouse. Spinal Mouse is a device that, combined with a computer program, assesses the curvatures of the vertebral column without applying harmful radiation. Spinal Mouse checks: spine alignment, measuring segmental and global angles in the sagittal and frontal planes; posture and spinal mobility; spine functions and performance.

Women were asked to complete three trials of the TUG under three conditions: performance of the TUG alone, performance of the TUG with the addition of a cognitive task (TUG cognitive), and performance of the TUG with the addition of an upper-extremity motor task (TUG manual). Women were given verbal instructions to stand up from a chair, walk 3 m as quickly and as safely as possible, cross a line marked on the floor, turn around, walk back, and sit down. In the TUG cognitive, women were asked to complete the test while counting backward by threes from a randomly selected number between 20 and 100. In the TUG manual, women were asked to complete the test while carrying a full cup of water.

Trigger points are discrete, focal, hyperirritable spots located in a taut band of skeletal muscle. A pressure at a trigger point is performed in order to evoke pain at the point as well as referred pain in myofascial or visceral structures. The trigger points located in the gluteal and adductors muscles are going to be assessed.

Health status was assessed by the Euroqol-5dimensions (EQ-5D). It is divided into 2 sections. The first section contains 5 questions about mobility, self-care, usual activities, pain/discomfort and anxiety/depression. For each question, problems within the domain are evaluated on a 3-level basis. Responders can choose between "no problems", "some problems" or "extreme problems". The second part is a visual analogue scale (VAS) score, which records the responder's self-evaluated health status, where 0 is worst imaginable health and 100 is best imaginable health.