Before diving into this article, if you are wondering what a pessary is, check out The Pessary: Giving Support Where Women Need it | Lakeview Physio in Calgary, AB. The short answer is a pessary is a medical device that provides inter-vaginal support: it can help with symptoms of pelvic organ prolapse (POP) as well as stress urinary incontinence (SUI), or both.
At Lakeview Physiotherapy & Movement Studio we are all about personalized care and movement. A personalized medical device that helps women move with confidence? Why yes sign us up! So, when we learned about a Canadian company also looking to provide this kind of confidence and support to women, we felt it was going to be the start of a wonderful friendship.
Personalized Pessaries for Patients | Cosm Medical is now giving us pessary fitting physiotherapists the opportunity to customize aspects of standard pessaries to improve fit, feel, and function for our patients. Think of it like wanting to buy a pair of pants off the rack, but you need to take it to a tailor to perfect the fit. That’s what Cosm Gynethotics™ Pessaries offer, just no tailor is involved!
Our process for assessing and fitting a patient for a pessary remains the same: we ensure that they are a suitable candidate to fit for a pessary, we take time to understand their symptoms and goals, and then we perform a physical exam. This helps us gauge the general style and size of the pessary to try. Once we trial a pessary, we take note of the dimensions and any patient symptoms or sensations that they are experiencing. If a standard pessary does the job, then great! But, if the fit could be improved, or the symptoms reduced even further, now we have this personalization option to offer our patients. Using Cosm’s clinician portal, we can upload the appropriate measurements to design personalized pessaries. These are 3D printed in Toronto and are shipped back to us in just over one month.
What is exciting is that Cosm has an informative patient portal too, which provides education on POP, SUI, and pessaries. Patient symptoms and satisfaction surveys are a part of this portal, as Cosm continues to grow their technology. There is a variety of accessible videos that instruct insertion and removal of the pessary for self-management, which is a great supplement to our instruction we provide in person. Even if a patient doesn’t need a customized approach, this portal is available to any of our pessary patients.
Being a part of innovation for women’s health is an important cornerstone of our practice. We are proud to be leaders in this aspect of pelvic health physiotherapy care in Calgary.
(Hero image used with permission: Personalized Pessaries for Pelvic Floor Disorders | Cosm Medical)