Pelvic girdle pain and relevance of ASLR testing: A ... - Cindy Verheul

1. Introduction
This Master research is a blinded clinical trail with the goal: Assess the prevalence of pelvic
instability and the relevance of stability testing at post-natal women.
As background the author provided the bachelor thesis with the title: Pelvic girdle pain and
pelvic instability is an important issue at postnatal related complaints.
The author’s interest in pelvic instability started during the training as a physiotherapist. On
March 8, 1997 the second national symposium on “low back and pelvic problems during and
after pregnancy” in The Hague increased the interest in the subject. During and after the
symposium the author was confronted with this patient group in such a way that the author
wanted to contribute on possible development of the diagnostics, treatment and advice on
the complaints. The author was convinced that a scientific research on the diagnostic tools
to be able to determine pelvic instability would be of enormous importance for this group of
patients.
After this symposium, Maureen van den Handel (with whom the author graduated for
physical therapy) and the author came in contact with the Spine & Joint Center in Rotterdam.
This is an “out patient” practice for low back and pelvic complaints. Here Maureen and the
author came in contact with Annelies Pool-Goudzwaard who was working on her PhD. Her
theme was about the function of the iliolumbar ligament. She did an in vitro research on
carcasses. AsAnnelies could use some assistants, Maureen and the author have assisted
Annelies by taking over parts of the in-depth literature study. On top of this there was a
opportunity to do an in vitro study on the anatomy of the iliolumbar ligament ourselves.
Last but not least, the author also experienced from near by how debilitating a pelvic
instability can be. This motivated the author even more to continue research in this field.
As Osteopaths are distinguished from many manual therapists by their holistic philosophy
and method of treatment, the author find it important that there is an overall and holistic
picture of what is known about low back and pelvic complaints. An other objective of this
thesis is to present the results this study about pregnancy-related pelvic pain and pelvic
instability to make this transparent and understandable for professionals as laymen.
In the last decades a lot of research has been done on low back and pelvic complaints.
Osteopathie Schule Deutschland
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