Precautions to take if you are receiving physical therapy at Phoenix PT

In an abundance of caution and with the desire to keep patients, families and staff safe during the pandemic, Phoenix Physical Therapy has the following recommendations/requirements in place in keeping with current Vermont state mandates:

1. Thanksgiving has always been an important time for families to come together in celebration. This year, gatherings will look slightly different. Please avoid gathering with others outside your immediate household, opting to experience a virtual dinner with others instead.
2. If you have children returning home for the holidays or family/friends who otherwise reside elsewhere (such as college), they must quarantine per state regulations (see details below) prior to you having an in-person appointment at Phoenix PT. 
3. Both during and after the holiday season, we require that any patient that has been exposed to individuals that may fall under travel restrictions (family or otherwise) utilize telehealth appointments for 2 weeks following initial exposure to these individuals. This includes exposure to anyone who was in your home who does not live there daily and who had not previously quarantined according to Vermont guidelines. Telehealth visits allow us to provide ongoing care and support for your health needs while lowering risks to other patients and clinicians.
4. If a family member is tested a few days before returning home, it does not mean they are risk free from covid once they arrive home.  A quarantine still needs to occur at home per state health regulations until new test results are received, in order to ensure safety to all involved.
5. Getting tested for Covid after seven days being symptom free and receiving a negative test result would allow patients to return to this office prior to the 14 day requirement. However you must remain in quarantine until you receive your test result.
6. Telehealth visits at Phoenix PT are highly recommended the week of Thanksgiving and the week after as well as throughout the holidays and beyond.    If you have ‘self quarantined’ at home for a minimum of 7 days after your guests or family have left and you have a negative COVID test, you are able to attend treatment in person.  Please remember, this is in place to protect you, other patients and all staff at Phoenix PT.

Vermont State Department Covid-19 Guidelines:

Vermonters are pleased and proud to welcome visitors, but during the pandemic there is guidance you must follow if you decide to come to Vermont. Do not travel to Vermont if you are sick. 

What to Know About Quarantine:

People who are coming to Vermont from many out-of-state locations will need to quarantine for fourteen (14) days. Quarantine helps prevent the spread of disease before a person knows they are sick or if they are infected with the virus and don’t have symptoms.

Quarantine means staying at a home or dwelling before doing any activities outside of the home, like grocery shopping or getting together with friends or family. People in quarantine should separate themselves from others and check themselves for symptoms. Learn more about quarantine and see tips about quarantining when you share a home. We strongly encourage anyone in quarantine to sign up for daily symptom check reminders. If you are a college student coming home to Vermont for a break or holiday, you must quarantine for 14 days, once you arrive. If you have not had any symptoms of COVID-19, the quarantine period may be shortened by having a test on or after day 7 of quarantine, though you must continue to quarantine until you receive a negative test result.

Phoenix Physical Therapy, PLC is pleased to welcome our newest staff member, Catherine Bergeron-Radoux. Catherine received her Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) degree from UVM and her undergraduate degree in Business Administration also from UVM. She is thrilled to join our staff finding fulfillment in helping patients with pelvic muscle dysfunction.

Catherine began her journey in health and wellness as a personal trainer and yoga instructor using strengthening and relaxation methods that were accessible, and empowering to her clients and students. She believes that wellness is a right, and that bodies of all shapes and sizes can achieve lifelong health with the right support and tools. Pelvic health was a natural fit for her as she understood the important connection between mindfulness and body function, mental health and physical wellbeing. She hopes to empower all her patients to be their own strongest advocate and to gain a better knowledge and understanding of their bodies for optimal function.

In addition to her love of healthcare and well being, Catherine enjoys cooking, baking, and gardening. She enjoys making beautiful flower arrangements from her blossoms. Additionally her favorite pass time of all is rock climbing throughout New England and the Adirondacks. She and her fiancé have two dogs. Catherine is fluent in French and has a great sense of humor.

Phoenix Physical Therapy, PLC would like to share a blog post with you that is not only well written, but gets to the point that all pelvic floor conditions and treatments should not be categorized as the same!  The author, Angela Law, has interviewed numerous medical physicians who are experts in the field of pelvic floor muscle dysfunction.  She offers great information that will prove useful to those of you who suspect or have been told you have a tense/high tone muscle. 

I urge you to take a few minutes and read this article from POPSUGAR. The information is well represented and concise.   You can view the article here: https://www.popsugar.com/fitness/symptoms-tight-overactive-pelvic-floor-muscles-47577094

POPSUGAR, the source for this blog post from June 28, 2020 is an American media and technology company that is parent to the media property POPSUGAR. Phoenix Physical Therapy, PLC is a pelvic floor physical therapy practice well known for treating all pelvic floor issues in all genders and ages.  

With Governor Phil Scott’s ‘continual and gradual turning of the spigot’, he is now allowing healthcare providers in private practices to resume treatments!  This is great news for the staff at Phoenix Physical Therapy as we are anxious to return to the work we love and to helping people like you over come the symptoms which led you to our practice in the first place. 

So what does this re-opening mean to you? 

• Employees, patients and necessary companions (no more than one person accompanying patient please and only if absolutely necessary) are required to wear a face mask.  Bring your own mask.  We only have enough Personal Protective Equipment to protect our staff and we will send patients away if not wearing required masks.

• We ask that all employees and patients that exhibit a fever, cough, or shortness of breath to not come to the office.  A sign on the outside door reflects this:  DO NOT ENTER If you suspect you have a fever .  You  will be refused entry and sent home with a plan for follow up to a physician for testing and a plan to reschedule an appointment with Phoenix PT.  If you have encountered someone you know that has traveled out of state or knows to have been exposed to someone else with COVID-19, you will be asked to reschedule your appointment after self-quarantining for two weeks.  All of these measures are to help keep everyone safe and protected against this virus!  Our staff does their temperature checks daily upon arrival to the office. 

• We are sanitizing our treatment rooms before and after each patient.  You will not be allowed to wait in the waiting room but will go to your treatment room as soon as your temperature is taken.  This will only occur after you have sanitized your hands with the sanitizer located within the hallway entering the office. 

• We have one waiting room chair, designed for those who cannot stand for more than a minute or two.  Please save that chair for someone in need.  You  will be taken quickly to your treatment rooms after your temperatures is taken.  We designed this plan to ensure social distancing.

• Hand sanitizer is essential to anyone entering the office.  Please look for the station just inside our entry door. 

• Your therapist will have hand sanitizer available for your use during your treatment, if requested, in addition to what is available outside the treatment areas.

• We have clearly displayed signage emphasizing social restrictions on distancing, coughing/sneezing etiquette, wearing masks and hand hygiene in all common areas, treatment rooms and bathrooms. 

• We disinfect all treatment rooms and common areas three times a day as well as after every treatment.  We are using FDA approved hydrogen peroxide wipes for cleaning and have the option to supplement with alcohol wipes or Chlorox wipes.  We disinfect the bathrooms frequently and as you will note there are signs in the restrooms indicating proper hygiene to flush the toilet.  Sink faucets, towel dispensers and trash cans are automatic.  Kick the base of the trash can to open the lid and wave your hand in front of the paper towel dispenser to activate. 

We understand your hesitancy while being able to resume important medical care and we are happy to answer any questions you may have.  We are here to be of assistance to you to achieve your goals and eliminate your symptoms.  REST ASSURED WE ARE TAKING EVERY MEASURE WE CAN TO KEEP STAFF AND PATIENTS SAFE AND HEALTHY.   YOU MAY ALSO CHOOSE TO MEET YOUR THERAPIST OVER TELEMEDICINE.  PLEASE LET THE KNOW THAT IS OF INTEREST TO YOU.

Let’s all work together to get through this pandemic – working as one makes us stronger!

Everyone experiences constipation, sometime! Maybe it was on vacation and you felt bloated and miserable; or when you were busy at work and had to rush to complete a task. In any event, you felt ‘awful’. Maybe you couldn’t zip your favorite jeans due to abdominal bloating, maybe you experienced lower abdominal discomfort or experienced a painful ‘movement’ once you went. There are many people who experience these symptoms and more on a daily basis. When someone finally gets the courage to see a specialist about this problem, they might be diagnosed with ‘pelvic floor dyssynergia’ or ‘muscle incoordination’.

Pelvic muscle dyssysnergia (incoordination) refers to the action that occurs in the pelvic floor musculature at the time of defecation. It can become a withholding pattern and in the case of vacation or a change in your work schedule, it can simply be tensing the muscle to avoid the bowel movement (due to inconvenience) rather than heeding the ‘call’. Over time, if this behavior is repeated, it becomes muscle memory; instead of relaxing the pelvic muscle to defecate, the patient tenses the muscle; thus the term dyssynergia or incoordination.

The function of the pelvic floor for bowel function is to provide closure of the anal canal to maintain continence. The muscle should signal the rectum and the colon when to defecate and should provide opening of the anal canal by total relaxation to allow for complete and effortless elimination. A dyssynergic pattern shuts the opening of the canal by tensing the muscle to prevent elimination. Thus an incoordination.

The research by Heymen, Scarlett, Ringman, Drossman et al entitled “Randomized, Controlled Trial Shows Biofeedback to Be Superior to Alternative Treatments for Patients with Pelvic Floor Dyssynergia-Type Constipation” supports the value of biofeedback in the treatment of this withholding pattern associated with stool elimination. This study supports the benefit of biofeedback treatments using sensors to provide the feedback displayed on a computer screen for visualization. This study goes on to say, “We also have shown that the machines are necessary—instrumented biofeedback is an essential element of successful training; however, there is a shortage of practitioners who are trained to provide this form of biofeedback, and there are few clinics where biofeedback instruments are available and where this form of biofeedback can be obtained”.

Biofeedback provides visual and auditory feedback of muscle tension, It is a non-invasive technique that allows patients to adjust muscle function, strength, and behaviors to improve pelvic floor function. The small electrical signal (EMG) provides information about an unconscious process and is presented visually on a computer screen, giving the patient immediate knowledge of muscle function, enabling the patient to learn how to alter the physiological process through verbal and visual cues. This mechanism allows the patient to assess muscle resting tone, creating an environment that teaches how to downtrain a tense pelvic floor while providing the means to teach coordination of muscle function.

In short, biofeedback treatment/training using the proper instrumentation provides the precise information necessary to change behaviors associated with tensing the pelvic floor for defecation instead of the proper relaxation of the pelvic floor for release of stool from the anal canal.

Re-training the pelvic floor muscle is what Phoenix Physical Therapy is all about; treating patients with pelvic floor muscle dysfunction is the sole focus of our staff of highly skilled pelvic floor therapists. Whether treating patients for constipation, or bowel or urinary incontinence or pelvic pain, Phoenix is recognized and acclaimed locally, regionally, and even nationally for our compassionate and successful treatment of pelvic floor challenges for patients from young children to the elderly.

During May, all mothers were celebrated with a special day known as Mother’s Day.  How each and every family honors mother is different and special in their own unique way.  Women, as mothers, often celebrate the designated day with cookouts, brunches, dinners and just relaxation with (hopefully) breakfast in bed or a ‘bye’ on cleaning up the dinner dishes.  

Interesting, many women remarked that their celebrations included grandmother, greatgrands, aunts, children, neighbors and anyone else in need of a family support system for the day.  As women, we are collectively known as the ‘tend and be-friend’ gender versus the men who exhibit the ‘fight or flight’ behavior.  All of this jargon is based from research over years that indicates how the hormonal differences between men and women influence the relationship with others.

Women are, as many of us realize, the ones to care for others.  We are the nurturers, the caregivers, the ones to help spouses, parents, children and grandchildren.  As a collective and generalized ‘whole’ we take care of everyone else before we care for ourselves.  Sound familiar?

Women, as patients, are always in need of care, but will often put their needs aside to take care of others in the family, whether it is caring for a grandchild so the son or daughter can work, or driving a parent to an appointment, etc.  On average, women wait 6.5 years from the first symptom of bladder issues until they seek a diagnosis for their bladder control problem. (National Association for Incontinence, Facts and Statistics, www.nafc.org). When is the time to care for ourselves as women?  “Now”, would be my answer!!  

If you, as a female caregiver/nurturer of others, don’t care for your own needs, who will do it for you?  If you leak urine when you sneeze, laugh, dance or otherwise are active, who can help you if you don’t help yourself?  How about at a baseball/softball game; do you need to head to the woods to pee?  Pregnancy, childbirth and menopause are major reasons of the increased prevalence of incontinence in women as compared to men. (WomensHealth.gov, Urinary Incontinence fact sheet, https://www.womenshealth.gov/publications/our-publications/fact-sheet/urinary-incontinence.html).  Who can help if you don’t accept you need help with this problem and seek intervention?  

So here we are; a group of professional women, willing to help you solve your problem so you can learn to help yourself!  What better way to learn to control this hidden muscle that is responsible for letting pee or poop out of your body.  Learn to control the muscle, learn to eliminate the problem and guess what?  Get control back in your life without drugs or surgery, just with you!!

At Phoenix PT we often hear, “I don’t have time”, or “I can’t do this as I have too many people to care for”.  These are NOT reasons to avoid treatment; we can help with those time jams.  After all, we are women too, with a great sense of how to help you deal with life’s uncertainty.  

Come see us.  Schedule an appointment.  Wouldn’t you love to attend your daughter’s wedding without a pad as protection in your underwear?  Wouldn’t you love to not worry about finding a restroom at your granddaughter’s softball game or track meet?  And wouldn’t you love to sit on the beach in the sun in your bathing suit and not worry about finding a restroom to pee all the time?

If you want to improve, we can help and Phoenix PT will also help you recognize the time in your schedule that you need to make this work.  Phoenix PT helps exclusively with pelvic floor muscle issues including pain, incontinence, infections, retention, constipation and many, many other embarrassing issues.  Call today and ask our personal staff if we can help.  A little information goes a long way to see if you can gain benefit from treatment, and we can then make that happen for you.

If you don’t care for yourself, who will care for you?  Learn to control this embarrassing issue now and enjoy your summer.  No surgery, no drugs, just you.  Call us today.

Have you recently sneezed, coughed, laughed or made a sudden or quick movement that resulted in an accidental leakage of urine or gas?  Has this leakage become more of an issue now that it is cough and flu season?  Have you started to exercise more as a New Year’s resolution and notice small leaks of urine throughout your workout or when you walk or jog at a brisk pace?  Our staff at Phoenix Physical Therapy wants you to know that this accidental leakage is NOT a normal part of aging and should not be chalked up to having children!  We want you to know that although this is a very common issue for women, it is a sign of a problem that can be easily treated at our office.  We specialize in helping women learn to manage these symptoms through simple, safe and effective exercises, tailored to the individual needs of the woman.  You should first mention this to your physician or health care provider.  Even though this problem is embarrassing and difficult to discuss, statistics show that it usually takes 6-7 years for a woman to express concern to her primary health care provider regarding this incontinence problem.  Wouldn’t it be nice for you to learn how to improve this issue before it turns into a larger problem that you have to deal with year after year?  This problem just doesn’t go away on its own despite wishful thinking!

Many of our patients are initially unaware of why these accidental leaks of urine or gas occur.  In every male and female, there is a small muscle at the bottom of our pelvis that helps to support the bladder, urethra and colon.  This muscle is called the pelvic floor muscle.  Piercing this muscle are “tubes” that run from the bladder and colon to the outside of the body.  Although this muscle is not readily visible, it is entirely under our control.  This means we have the ability to contract and relax this muscle to control any form of accidental leakage.  Because we cannot readily see this muscle it is often difficult to know how to make our muscle function in a timely or appropriate fashion.  When there is an increase in abdominal pressure such as with a cough or sneeze, this increases pressure on the bladder and colon which then requires our pelvic floor muscle to hold the urethra and/or colon closed to ensure that urine or gas (or other) stays inside where it belongs!  If the muscle is unable to function correctly, perhaps due to weakness, it becomes difficult to keep closure when this increase in pressure from the abdomen occurs.  This is called stress incontinence.  Common activities that can result in leakage include, but are not limited to, sneezing, coughing, laughing, lifting heavy objects, running and bending.

If you experience such leakage, rest assured!  Our staff is skilled in teaching you how to use your pelvic floor muscles.   If you learn how to use your pelvic floor muscle and you practice timing your muscle contraction prior to and during the activities that create your leaks, you will learn to retain your muscle to respond the way it was intended.  In essence, you are learning to retrain your muscle.  This is called the “Knack Maneuver” and is named because you have the knack to get the hang of it! It is all about precision timing of the contraction!  It may take weeks of proper practice to see a difference, but our staff will help and encourage you with tips and suggestions to make your practice successful.

Incontinence is treatable!  You shouldn’t have to resort to use of pads to protect yourself from accidental leakage.  Waiting years to treat this problem only adds to prolonging your incontinence and pelvic floor muscle dysfunction.  Call us today! We are here to help you overcome this embarrassing problem.  Our office manager, Linda, is ready to take your call.