What Do We Actually Gain From an Internal Pelvic Floor Evaluation?

To be honest, we never imagined we'd need to explain this. 

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To be honest, we never imagined we'd need to explain this. 

Fair warning: this episode gets a little nerdy.

Over the last two episodes, we've talked about why we believe internal pelvic floor evaluation remains the gold standard in pelvic rehabilitation. This week, we're answering the obvious follow-up question:

What do we actually gain from performing one?

For those of us who were trained to perform internal evaluations—and who use them every day in practice—the value seems almost self-evident. It's become such a fundamental part of how we think, reason, and treat that we rarely stop to ask why. It's also where our profession has focused its education, research, and clinical training for more than 40 years.

But recent conversations in our field have challenged us to step back and articulate something we've largely taken for granted.

So that's exactly what we do in this episode.

We break down the first principles of an internal pelvic floor evaluation: 

• How it reduces uncertainty

• Improves diagnostic accuracy

• Helps individualize treatment

• Identifies findings that might otherwise be missed

• Gives patients understanding and validation

This is why the ability and willingness to perform an internal evaluation - when clinically relevant and with informed consent - has remained the gold standard in pelvic rehabilitation for decades.

If you've ever struggled to explain why internal evaluation matters—or simply want to think more deeply about one of the defining skills of our profession—this episode is for you.

International Continence Society Paper

In the episode we mention a paper from the ICS that was extremely helpful in listing out many of the areas where we gain information, specificity or new information.  You can review the article in full here: 

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Nicole Cozean, PT, DPT, WCS

Founder of Pelvic PT Rising and PelvicSanity Physical Therapy in Southern California.

Dedicated to forever changing pelvic health with online clinical courses to help you be more confident in your practice and business resources to help start and grow pelvic health businesses.

Jesse Cozean, MBA

Co-founder of the Pelvic PT Rising and the Rising Podcast.

Jesse uses his business experience to help pelvic health business owners start and grow their practices so they can build a practice that truly works for them. From website design, SEO, conversions, marketing, finance and money mindset, he wants to make the process of owning your own practice easier and fun.