Physiotherapy-Led Pelvic Health Clinics

To address long hospital waitlists and improve patient access to care for pelvic floor conditions such as #incontinence and #prolapse , physiotherapy-led pelvic health clinics were introduced as a new model of care for gynaecology, urogynaecology and colorectal patients. Two physiotherapists involved in the evolution of this model of care are Jenny Nucifora and Janelle Greitschus (bios below). In this episode, they explain how this model was developed, the research supporting it's positive impact, and the role and pathway for advance practice physiotherapists in this setting.

 

Bios:

Jenny Nucifora is the Clinical Lead Physiotherapist in the Physiotherapy Led Pelvic Health Clinic at Gold Coast Health. This part time primary contact role within the urogynaecology team Clinic, was established in December 2016, to provide timely conservative management interventions as part of a strategy to reduce the urogynaecology waiting lists. Jenny continues to work part time in her private practice, Focus On Women Physiotherapy, at Benowa, Gold Coast, Queensland. She has been a Women’s Health physiotherapist for more than 25 years. Her research interests are in improving care of women with urinary incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse, and the development of women’s health physiotherapists.

Janelle Greitschus is a clinical lead physiotherapist in the Pelvic Health Clinic at the QEII Jubilee Hospital, Metro South, Brisbane. This is a part time primary contact role associated with the Gynaecology, Urogynaecology, Urology and Colorectal Departments of this hospital. This clinic was established in 2016 and is designed to reduce the waiting lists of those clinical specialties by providing conservative care for patients with pelvic floor dysfunction prior to them seeing a medical specialist. Conditions included are: urinary or faecal incontinence, urogenital or rectal prolapse, obstructed defaecation or constipation. This provides a streamlined model of care following evidence based practice.

Janelle continues to work at Results Physiotherapy Private practice part-time, treating patients with pelvic floor dysfunction.

Janelle has a sessional teaching role at the Griffith University, Gold Coast and Nathan campuses teaching continence and Womens health physiotherapy in the Undergraduate and Masters of Physiotherapy programmes.

Janelle has been involved in teaching the Assessment and Treatment of the Pelvic Floor Course offered by the APA since the late 1990s until the recent introduction of the Womens, Men’s and Pelvic Health level 1 and 2 courses. She has been part of the successful research grant application “To assess the success and acceptability of a physiotherapy management program to treat urinary incontinence in indigenous women in a community based indigenous health service.”

 

Research:

Jenny - ResearchGate, email: jennifer.nucifora@health.qld.gov.au

Do patients discharged from the physiotherapy-led pelvic health

clinic re-present to the urogynaecology service? May 2021

Outcomes of a physiotherapy-led pelvic health clinic.

Patient Perceptions of a Group-Based Lifestyle Intervention for Overweight Women with Urinary Incontinence: A Qualitative Descriptive Study