Effects of a physiotherapy program based on education and pelvic floor muscle training on chronic functional constipation

Functional constipation, a common gastrointestinal problem especially in young women, often caused by paradoxical contraction or failed relaxation of the puborectalis and external anal sphincter muscles during defecation. Usual treatments consist of medications, surgery and injection of botulinum toxin have some complications and limitations. Therefore, the present study is aimed to investigate the effects of a proposed physiotherapy protocol, which is based on patients’ education and pelvic floor muscle training on functional constipation. A quasi-experimental study was conducted on ten women aged 29-50 years (29.7±7.7). After clinical and manometric assessments, the proposed protocol including patients’ education, general body relaxation exercises and pelvic floor muscle training have been presented for 18 sessions. The above assessments repeated on last session. The Spss/win11.5 and Wilcoxon was used for analysis. We found a significant increase in resting and squeeze pressures at upper and lower anal canals and rectum push pressure. upper and lower anal canal push pressures decreased significantly (p<0.05). In addition, there was a significant decrease in frequency of incomplete evacuation, hard defecation, obstruction feeling at anal canal and digital evacuation (p=0.006). According to the present study, the proposed physiotherapy protocol, could significantly affect on some signs and symptoms in women with functional constipation.