Bowel and Bladder Treatment of The Client With Neurologic Dysfunction

Participants who register for this course have the option to attend the course live and/or watch the recorded sessions later. The recording will be available to all registrants for a 2-week period after the course/each session. This allows participants who may not be able to attend the live sessions to still benefit from the course content.

To facilitate attendance tracking, please indicate on your registration form if you won't be attending live.

Course Description:

Patients that are being treated for neurologic dysfunction have a variety of therapy services offered to them. Many physicians and therapists overlook bowel and bladder concerns for these patients as an untreatable side effect. There are a variety of behavioural and pelvic floor interventions that can be applied to this patient population.

This hybrid course will present the common bowel/bladder and sexual side effects that patients can experience with diagnoses of stroke, Multiple Sclerosis, ALS, Spinal cord injury and Parkinson’s Disease. Medical treatments of bowel and bladder dysfunction in the neurogenic population will be delineated. The course will then explore behavioural interventions that therapists and caregivers can apply to be able to alleviate some of the quality-of-life impact that these dysfunctions can have. Therapists will learn external pelvic floor techniques both manual and exercise based that can help to improve bowel and bladder functioning in these patients. Finally, sexual dysfunction in this patient population will also be explored. Participants will leave the course with treatment plans and therapeutic techniques to improve quality of life for these patients.

This course includes 3 hours of pre-course work (videos and pre-readings on anatomy and physiology of neurogenic bowel and bladder). During the online portion of the course, participants will explore the bowel, bladder and sexual dysfunction common to several neurologic diseases as well as common physiotherapy treatment methods.

Course Objectives

• Participants will be able to describe the common bowel and bladder issues experienced by patients with neurologic issues
• Participants will be able to create a program of typical treatment techniques that can be used by pelvic floor physical therapists to treat patients with neurologic insults.
• Participants will be able to create appropriate patient education to help patients with neurologic dysfunction identify when pelvic floor physiotherapy may help with their bowel and bladder dysfunction.

Audience: This course is open to physiotherapists, naturopathic doctors, registered nurses, and medical doctors.

Prerequisite: Level 1 is recommended but not mandatory. Information & skills taught must be used within scope of practice.