Métodos de avaliação direta da força dos músculos do assoalho pélvico feminino: revisão sistemática e modelo de utilidade
Resumen
The pelvic floor muscles have an important role in supporting the abdominal viscera and also
in urinary and fecal continence, also have an important role in sexual function of women. It is
through the functional assessment of these muscles that is verified the efficiency of
conservative treatment, for that were developed some tools, however, the dynamometer is the
only one equipment which performs direct assessment of strength. The vaginal dynamometer
is a device of difficult access, since most of it was developed by research groups and only one
device is commercially available, but it still used only for study and research. This study is
composed of a systematic review of the literature about vaginal dynamometers and a search
for prior patents, to identify devices that perform direct assessment of the strength of the
pelvic floor muscles to identify the technologies developed and their settings, as well as
search for commercial equipment. The objective of this study was to propose a device to
evaluate the pelvic floor muscles directly and objectively, from the prior art search. The
objective of this study was to propose a device to evaluate the pelvic floor muscles directly
and objectively, from the prior art search. Were found 13 equipments in the literature that
varied in cylindrical, specular and spherical that have different dimensions in relation to the
length and diameter. They have different numbers of sensors and different parameters
evaluated, as well as maximum force of contraction of the pelvic floor muscles, some
equipments evaluated resistance and tonus. Were found 14 patents of which eight were related
to the equipment found in the literature. The patents have a less specific detail and may have
more than one configuration for the same equipment. Only one commercial equipment was
found, but its sale is restricted only to research, until this moment. At the end of this review, it
was possible to make a proposal for intravaginal device, as well as integrating relevant
characteristics to assess the direct force of the pelvic floor as well as other important aspects
to evaluate the function of these muscles, and attempts to overcome some limitations of the
present equipment in literature. It is concluded from the literature that the dynamometer is an
important equipment to be developed because of its contribution to evaluation of treatment
and greater understanding of the pathophysiology, and has great potential for innovation