Understanding and Diagnosing Pelvic Floor Dysfunction

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Based on her complaints as well as physical examinations, I can conclude that the diagnosis for this patient is Pelvic Floor Dysfunction (PFD). According to the International Urogynecological Association, there are multiple common diagnosis for PFD. It includes pelvic organ prolapse and urinary tract infection (Haylen, 2010). Three factors that contribute to this are childbirth, aging, and obesity. Eleanor’s increase in childbirth made her more prone to this disease. As a woman who gave birth twice, she is more likely to gain this disease compared to a person who only gave birth once. Childbirth causes the pelvic floor to change, therefore causing a possible dysfunction in that area (Bartling, 2016). Now that Ms. Eleanor is 88 years old, she is more susceptible to gaining this disease because as women grow older they’re more likely to get it. Obesity also plays a role in this diagnosis, and because she is on regular medication for hypertension, we can infer that she’s overweight. Urinary incontinence, stress urinary incontinence, increased daytime urinary frequency, nocturnal enuresis, vaginal bulging, and …show more content…

In the beginning I inferred that Eleanor may be overweight due to her hypertension medications. It’s important to change her lifestyle by losing weight, because obesity is one of the causes of pelvic floor dysfunction. When the muscles in the pelvic region does not contract properly, it is known as Pelvic floor dysfunction. Pelvic floor exercises will help increase contractions and improve coordination (Jundth, 2015). This treatment will also help improve urinary incontinence or stress incontinence. Surgery should be the last resort if the pelvic floor exercise treatment fails. The reason for so is because of the multiple side effects such as bladder perforation, persistent bladder emptying dysfunction, and internal bleeding (Jundth,

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