Fundamentals and practices for pelvic floor muscle training

Abstract

Recently, pelvic floor muscle training has become popular not only in health magazines but also in women’s magazines, on television and on social networking services. The pelvic floor muscles are difficult to visually confirm movement of in a clothed situation, making it difficult to get a sense of muscle contraction; and, thus, there are many cases of incorrect training leading to pelvic floor dysfunction, including urinary incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse, and significant reduction of quality of life and healthy life expectancy. Therefore, the ability of instructors to teach appropriate pelvic floor muscle training is an important key to the prevention and improvement of pelvic floor dysfunction. The purpose of this review is to understand the functional anatomy and motor function of the pelvic floor muscles and to disseminate evaluation and training practices for preventing and improving pelvic floor dysfunction such as urinary incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse.