SPECIAL ARTICLE   Free access

Europa Medicophysica 2000 June;35(2):91-101

Copyright © 2000 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Chronic pelvic pain and role of the surface electromyographic (EMG) biofeedback in the diagnosis and treatment

Di Benedetto P., Giorgini T.

Rehabilitation Center, Trieste, Italy

Chronic pel­vic ­pain (CPP) is ­defined as the pres­ence of pain­ful symp­toms local­ized in the pel­vic ­area ­which is ­found for at ­least six ­months. It ­refers to at ­least 15-20% of wom­en of repro­duc­tive age. The vis­cer­al pel­vic ­pain is char­ac­ter­ized by rath­er dif­fused local­iza­tion ­with ­respect to ­that of the skel­e­tal ­type ­pain. Anxiety or oth­er psy­cho­log­i­cal ­states of the ­patient ­could con­trib­ute to mod­ulate the expe­ri­ence of the ­pain. Frequently it is not pos­sible to iden­ti­fy a ­cause for ­this pel­vic ­pain; in ­many cas­es the caus­es of the pel­vic ­pain are com­pli­cat­ed by psy­cho­sex­u­al prob­lems, ­which ren­der the treat­ment ­very dif­fi­cult. The caus­es of CPP ­could be gyne­co­log­ical, uro­log­i­cal, intes­ti­nal, mus­cu­los­kel­e­tal, and psy­cho­log­i­cal. The ­most com­mon spe­cif­ic con­di­tions are rep­re­sent­ed by dys­pa­reu­nia, vul­var ves­tib­u­litis, ure­thral syn­drome, inter­sti­tial cys­titis, pros­tat­o­dy­nia, chron­ic orchi­al­gia, ten­sion myal­gia of the pel­vic ­floor, irri­ta­ble bow­el syn­drome, low ­back ­pain, and ­scar ­pain. The sur­face EMG bio­feed­back is a pre­cious instru­ment of diag­no­sis and ther­a­py of CPP in a con­text of mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary ­approach: it is ­able to ­bring the prob­lem to ­patient’s con­scious­ness and to ­involve him active­ly in the ther­a­peu­tic pro­cess.