Episode 1642 - When hands-on is off the table

Dr. April Dominick // #ICEPelvic // www.ptonice.com

In today's episode of the PT on ICE Daily Show, #ICEPelvic faculty member April Dominick discusses how to navigate a pelvic PT eval when a "hands-on approach" for assessment & treatment may be off the table due to an individual comfort level with pelvic examinations or when trauma is on board.

Take a listen to learn how to better serve this population of patients & athletes or check out the full show notes on our blog at www.ptonice.com/blog.

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION

INTRODUCTION Hey everyone, this is Alan. Chief Operating Officer here at ICE. Before we get started with today's episode, I want to talk to you about VersaLifts. Today's episode is brought to you by VersaLifts. Best known for their heel lift shoe inserts, VersaLifts has been a leading innovator in bringing simple but highly effective rehab tools to the market. If you have clients with stiff ankles, Achilles tendinopathy, or basic skeletal structure limitations keeping them from squatting with proper form and good depth, a little heel lift can make a huge difference. VersaLifts heel lifts are available in three different sizes and all of them add an additional half inch of drop to any training shoe, helping athletes squat deeper with better form. Visit www.vlifts.com/icephysio or click the link in today's show notes to get your VersaLifts today. APRIL DOMINICK Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the PT on Ice Daily Show. This is Dr. April Dominick here from the Ice Pelvic Faculty Division. And today we're discussing how to navigate a PT eval when hands-on treatment and assessment isn't an option. Psychiatrist Jacob Marino once said, the body remembers what the mind forgets. Why should we consider a hands-off approach during an eval for someone with pelvic floor symptoms? Maybe the client has some trauma, maybe they experienced nervousness about what a pelvic floor assessment is, or maybe they've had previous discomfort during other pelvic examinations with other medical providers or in a different setting. So for some of these folks, that hands-on assessment and manual treatment just is not going to be the best go-to during the evaluation and maybe even for some subsequent, if not all, follow-up visits. The idea that an internal or external exam is a requirement to make pelvic PT a success is just not true. Is it helpful? 100%. But we are the detectives of the musculoskeletal system. And we take into account the cognitive and emotional state into consideration of the human in front of us. just like all great sleuths like Nancy Drew, she's not making her next move based off of palpating the person in front of her, but she's taking cues from the person in front of her. So I'll give you some tips today for how to go about a hands-off assessment for an eval specifically, from the subjective to the objective, through the treatment, and then post-session. Pre-session, We want to make sure that your intake form has an area for a client to share some trauma or abuse that may have happened to them, whether that's current or they have a history of it, whether it's physical, emotional, whatever the case is. Whether they mark something on that intake form or not, as pelvic PTs, we are dealing with an extremely intimate part of the body. And that means that someone may not even realize that they're holding on to some trauma until maybe in session. They have some sort of trauma response because you palpated their low back, right? Or because you brought up during discussion or during subjective, um, a certain word and that was triggering to them like, um, anus. And knowing that their executive functioning is probably not working optimally in that moment is very helpful for us to make that session for them the best experience possible. If someone has a trauma response, just thinking before we even dive into the subjective, just having that in our head is important. We want to be non-judgmental. We want to be compassionate. in our responses, we should be patient and supportive of a pause that that person may need to take. They may need to take a breath or ground themselves or stretch. I have these little small animals like a llama, this one doesn't have any legs, just for them to hold on to and little fidgets as well. So know that that may happen in session and later on, You could ask them when they're not in that traumatic response or in the next session. You could ask them, hey, what would be appropriate for me to do to help you through that? Do you know? They may not have any thoughts on what to do if that does happen again. During the subjective, let's talk about that. With these clients, I tend to rely heavily on the subjective. We want to be looking at the verbal and nonverbal communication from our clients. These can cue us for the need for a hands-off objective and treatment session, even if the trauma was not shared on the intake. From a nonverbal perspective, when you're looking at your client, do they have knees to chest? Are they folded in super flexed? Do they have minimal eye contact? Are they wringing their hands and fingers throughout the entire session? From a verbal perspective, type of words for pain. So in the pelvic setting, we hear a lot of really scary sounding words and words that sound harmful. Things like, it feels like there's a chainsaw in my vagina or every time I sit, it's like a hot poker is going up my butthole. So listening for those intense words when they're describing their pain, as well as a tremor in their voice, are they shaking? And then any sort of non-specific description of their pain. Oftentimes I'll be like, yeah, tell me, can you show me, or can you tell me more about where your pain is? And if they show me, they kind of like, point in this giant circle of like from sternum to mid-thigh is where their pain is, and for some that is where their pain is. But for others, their pain is at the tip of the penis, but they just aren't comfortable or maybe again, that is triggering to them to say the actual anatomical word. And then verbal communication from you as a provider is important. So we're thinking active listening, we're going to ask them about prior health visits, and then you're going to dial in some of your questioning. So from an active listening standpoint, they've probably been dismissed or maybe not heard in previous medical provider settings. So we want to be the ears for them. and asking them specifically about previous physical pelvic assessments, if they've had any, how did it go at the gynecologist or the urologist, or even if they worked with a prior pelvic PT, that can give you an idea for what worked and what didn't or doesn't work for them. And then get curious about some of their personal life events and their symptoms. So, If they've shared any sort of major surgeries or shifts in their personal life, ask with some compassionate curiosity, do you think that your jaw surgery is related to the urinary leakage that you're now having? And then they think back and they're like, oh my gosh, the urinary leakage started happening basically when I had my jaw surgery. So they have sometimes like an aha moment or if a family member died or if they shifted jobs or got fired from their job, that's when they started having intense pelvic pain. So you can, again, be a detective and kind of connect some events together and that can help them feel very heard for sure. And then I went during my actual, if I am going to do a hands-on assessment, before I even palpate someone, I always ask them, hey, is there anywhere that's off limits or that I cannot touch or assess? And I'm going to do the same thing with the person in front of me. If I feel like this is going to be a hands-off assessment, I'm going to ask them, are there any topics or body regions to avoid during our discussion or assessment? And then finally, for the subjective side of things, preconceived notions about the pelvic PT visit. Do they have any? What have they heard? Be sure that you are explaining the pelvic floor assessment thoroughly and that you ask them for their preferred learning type. So if they are a visual learner, is it okay that I show you this pelvic model? Even that, just the visual look of seeing the perineum could be triggering for someone. I had someone who I was showing them the muscles on the pelvic model and they had a visceral, nauseous, triggering response that we worked through. And they kind of actually had a flashback of when they had some childhood molestation. And then moving towards the objective, we want to reframe this appointment like it's a virtual visit. whic