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Description
For my doctoral capstone project, I partnered with PT Solutions Outpatient Therapy in Lexington, Kentucky with mentorship from an occupational therapist specializing in pelvic health therapy. The primary ACOTE focus areas were advocacy and education to support increased awareness of the benefits of outpatient pelvic health therapy services for perinatal women. This project aimed to educate, advocate, and increase awareness of perinatal pelvic health therapy by reaching the following goals: Understand occupational therapy’s role in pelvic floor therapy for perinatal women through evidence-based practice, clinical observation of pelvic floor therapy sessions, and hands-on clinical practice, advocate pelvic floor therapy to medical professionals through planned events, and construct educational resources and deliverables to be utilized by the outpatient therapy site to support education and awareness of services. After conducting a literature review and needs assessment, it was apparent that pelvic floor therapy needs increased research and advocacy regarding occupational therapy and patient awareness. There is a large population of pregnant and postpartum women who are unaware of pelvic floor therapy. As Burkhart et al. (2020) reported 66.8% of participants having no awareness of pelvic floor rehabilitation to address pelvic floor dysfunction pre- and postpartum. The design of this project addresses the gap of pelvic floor therapy education and awareness for physicians and patients through networking with local medical offices, development of resources, creation of deliverables, and increasing communication that promotes accessibility to pelvic health education. Additionally, this project provides opportunity for my mentor to utilize updated deliverables in her practice when educating and advocating in her field. The effectiveness of this project was evaluated through the use of clinical observation, collaboration with my mentor and medical providers, direct patient interactions, and hosting advocacy events. Medical providers, postpartum pelvic floor patients, and my mentor provided feedback which allowed opportunities to utilize pertinent information when integrating deliverables into practice. Deliverables developed during this project are to be directed for patient use as follows: a women’s pelvic floor therapy pamphlet, a 13-question survey to determine candidacy of pelvic floor therapy, a handout on pelvic floor dysfunction regarding urinary hygiene and urinary incontinence, and a handout containing what to expect during a pelvic floor evaluation. This project granted the opportunity to demonstrate my leadership by testing my abilities to initiate and manage deliverable creations, build rapport with patients, assist in planning and hosting luncheons, organizing advocacy events, and communicating the value of pelvic floor therapy with medical providers. My capstone project advances occupational science and occupational therapy while focusing on an emerging practice, advocating and providing education to the importance of pelvic floor rehabilitation in perinatal care. My capstone project was able to create applicable resources that my site can utilize for future advocacy and education and provided myself the opportunity to gain valuable knowledge and experience in the pelvic health field. This experience builds a foundation that will support my future plans of specializing in pelvic floor rehabilitation. This project addressed the needs identified in the literature review and needs assessment through implementing stronger connections with medical providers to create higher level client-centered care and increased referral rates for my site, and also by creating tools that provide easier accessibility to educating occupational therapy’s role in perinatal care.
Graduation Date
2025
Keywords
pelvic floor, pregnancy, education, advocacy, perinatal, postpartum, pelvic floor therapy
Disciplines
Occupational Therapy
Degree Type
Open Access Capstone
Document Type
Poster
Degree Name
Doctor of Occupational Therapy (OTD)
Department
Occupational Therapy
Site Mentor
Jodi Collins, OTR/L
Comments
Link to video presentation: https://youtu.be/rDOZ66dROrI?si=uURvSCBMnmFfKUwC