The Effect of Pelvic Floor Exercise on Urinary Incontinence and Quality of Sex Life

This physiotherapist-guided group training programme should be performed in both the supine and the sitting positions; it is investigated, which is better and more cost-effective in patient motivation.

Here we aimed to investigate whether-based on trunk muscle synergism-the condition and functioning of the pelvic floor muscle would improve in the sitting and supine postures or in the control group during pelvic floor muscle training with forced exhalation. We enrolled nulliparous women in supine (n = 22), sitting (n = 19) and control (n = 14) groups. We performed the 8-week combined pelvic floor muscle training programme. We examined the effect of training on the parameters with the Kruskal-Wallis test, and the pairwise comparisons with the Mann-Whitney U-test and the Wilcoxon-rank test with the Bonferroni correction.

pelvic floor muscle training, transverse abdominal muscle, ultrasound measurement, urinary incontinence, vaginal surface electromyography

The control group comprised 7 individuals with lower muscle strength (under 60 microvolt) and 7 with higher muscle strength (over 60 microvolt)

The treatment for the sitting group comprised 8 sessions, with a 1-hour combined pelvic floor muscle training (cPFM-T) session each week in a group and 15 minutes of individual home training, six times a week for a total of 8 weeks of treatment. All training sessions comprised warming-up, gradual muscle strengthening and relaxation exercises. In the study, before and after the training programme, we used a self-administered questionnaire.We measured changes in pelvic floor muscle activity with a vaginal surface electromyographic instrument. We performed the transversus abdominis measurements at the same time as the vaginal measurements and pelvic floor muscle tasks.

Inclusion Criteria: We included in the study groups women participants willing to participate in the study and able to contract the pelvic floor and transversus abdominis muscles correctly. Participants were required to maintain their everyday activities (attending lessons, sport activities, and so on). Exclusion Criteria: known neurological or rheumatological diseases and previous vaginal or abdominal surgery.

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