Hot Topics in Physical Therapy: Caring for the Perimenopausal Patient
My journey towards becoming a pelvic health PT began with my own path towards motherhood. I got pregnant and got curious about preventing injury in myself both during and after delivery. Over time, I began to collect skills to serve pregnant and post-partum people at the clinic, and it became an area of specialty. Those skills expanded to include persons without children with pelvic pain, constipation, erectile dysfunction, etc. but the vast majority of my patients in this space were under 40. Then something interesting happened…I got older, and so did my clients. One of the gifts of being a physical therapist is forming relationships with people in your community, and serving as a care provider for them intermittently throughout their lifetime. I noticed that the people I once cared for in the early days of parenthood were now corralling teenagers. There was a group of clients returning to the office in their 40s and 50s with new symptoms and new concerns. They were people entering the phase of life described as perimenopause, and they had questions. As it happens, so did I. If menopause describes the phase of life when one no longer menstruates, perimenopause is the time that […]