REACH 4 Ghana is currently hard at work with research, medical, and public health plans to make our trip a success. One of the things that our particular trip wanted to pursue was improving women's health. As a result of many different reasons (bearing down, carrying water incorrectly, obstetrical complications, diet), researchers have noticed that pelvic floor dysfunction (the muscles that basically hold up your bladder, rectum, and uterus in women) tends to be a common problem. We decided as a group to pursue ways that we could educate our patient population in Ghana about this and involve our Physical therapy students in some exercises in "Phase 1" of the program.
We've teamed up with great resources here in Richmond, including a Physical Therapist that specializes in the pelvic floor, who is giving us the low-down on how to recognize and help these patients. Most often, lots of these problems can lead to incontinence or prolapse, and exercises can be taught to patients that they can do everyday to increase the strength of these muscles in order to improve the quality of life without medication. Fistulas from obstetrical complications will inevitably need surgery, perhaps a service that our group cannot provide, but we feel like our ability to educate women on many of these exercises would be a worthwhile endeavor and are working hard to create screening protocols and create a physical therapy tutorial while we're in our clinic week.
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