This course is designed to improve the participant’s understanding and use of evidence-based practice and its impact on physical therapy. Participants learn how to ask clinically relevant questions, find and interpret the evidence, and apply this evidence to clinical practice. The goal of this course is to develop consumers and users of clinical research that will improve the quality and impact of the participant’s clinical practice on the patients they serve. This course teaches the student advanced pelvic floor techniques, including internal vaginal and rectal pelvic floor examination, evaluation, and treatment, use of biofeedback, overview of chronic pain, and more. 

By the end of the course, a successful learner will be able to:

• Discuss difficult topics with a client during history taking 
• Demonstrate effective downtraining interventions for clients with pelvic floor overactivity 
• Demonstrate effective uptraining interventions for clients with pelvic floor underactivity or poor motor control 
• Understand how to manage and treat chronic pelvic pain, including integrating a biopsychosocial approach into treatment planning 
• Develop an example treatment plan for the client with dyspareunia, pelvic pain, urinary or fecal incontinence, dysfunctional voiding, constipation, pudendal neuralgia and pelvic organ prolapse 
• Understand how to incorporate the core into retraining the pelvic floor