As pelvic health physiotherapists treating people with sexual pain and supporting them to improve their sexual health, we are often asked what lubricants we use for examinations and what we recommend for personal use. We thought that maybe you might be asked the same thing by your patients – and so decided to research lubricants. Here we share what we discovered and wrote for our patients in their quarterly newsletter.

The concept of sensorimotor retraining gained national and international attention in 2022 when a group of Australian researchers found promising benefits of graded sensorimotor retraining on pain intensity in patients with chronic low back pain. Known as the RESOLVE¹ study, they used a framework that included graded, novel precise exercises which showed statistically significant improvements in pain. As movement therapists it is important that Physiotherapists understand how changes in sensorimotor representation within a sensitised nervous system requires us to move beyond typical therapeutic stretching and strengthening exercises. We take a deep dive into the neuroscience behind this and explain how remapping exercises can target the sensorimotor dysregulation contributors to persistent pelvic and sexual pain.

The 23rd Asia Pacific Prostate Cancer Conference gathered almost 400 of the leading Australian and international Urologists, Oncologists, Pelvic Health Physiotherapists, Prostate Cancer Specialist Nurses, Urology Nurses and other health practitioners in this field together to share the most recent advances in research and treatment and learn about the improved management of prostate cancer. Shan Morrison was part of the organising committee for the conference that developed the Nursing and Allied Health Program.

The need for a biopsychosocial, whole person framework to manage low back pain and persistent pelvic pain has a strong evidence base and this is also slowly being acknowledged for Pregnancy Pelvic Girdle Pain. Based on this, at WMHP we have changed our approach to PPGP, however we are aware a strong biomedical bias in the diagnosis, language and management advice regarding PPGP persists.

Whilst commonly overlooked, dysfunctional breathing patterns contribute to many pelvic health disorders. In our clinical practice, we regularly screen for and notice altered and suboptimal breathing patterns in people that have pelvic floor muscle (PFM) dysfunction (with increased OR decreased resting muscle tone), persistent pelvic and sexual pain as well as urinary and anorectal dysfunction.