Clinical services · Specialty team
Men’s pelvic health physiotherapy addresses conditions affecting the pelvic floor, bladder and bowel function, and pelvic pain in men. Assessment and treatment are conducted with sensitivity and clinical rigour, using pelvic floor muscle retraining, education, and individualised exercise programs. We commonly support men before and after prostate surgery, as well as those experiencing ongoing pelvic pain or bladder and bowel symptoms that haven’t been fully resolved elsewhere.
A dedicated men’s health team
Seven physiotherapists across Norwest and Westmead
Research-led practice
Our own published work in prostate surgery and continence
Private consultation rooms
confirm private-room arrangements at both sites
Back to work, sport and life
Recovery measured by what you can do again, not by pad counts alone
Overview
Men's Health &
Continence: an overview
This service is for men dealing with continence, pelvic pain, and the pelvic floor consequences of prostate surgery. Most of the men we see are referred around a prostatectomy – some before it, many after – and arrive having been told very little about what was removed, what now has to do the work of continence, and how long that genuinely takes.
The work is a combination of assessment, verified pelvic floor retraining, and teaching. Our aim is that you leave able to explain your own recovery to your urologist rather than simply following instructions you were handed.
- Pre- and post-prostatectomy rehabilitation
- Urinary incontinence, urgency and frequency
- Chronic pelvic and perineal pain
- Bladder and bowel function
- Individualised, evidence-based programs
- Assessment and treatment in a private room
Common conditions we treat
- Pre- and post-prostatectomy rehabilitation
- Urinary incontinence following prostate surgery
- Chronic pelvic pain syndrome and chronic prostatitis
- Urinary urgency and frequency
- Erectile dysfunction with a pelvic floor component
- Bowel dysfunction, including faecal incontinence and constipation
- Pelvic floor muscle overactivity and underactivity
- Post-radiotherapy pelvic floor rehabilitation
- Persistent pelvic or perineal pain
Not sure if we can help?
Give us a call and we will talk it through with you. If we are not the right fit, we will help you find who is.
How we work
A personalised
approach to your care
Prostate surgery is a difficult stretch of time and the pelvic floor is only part of it. Assessment covers how you are contracting, what your bladder is actually doing across a day, and where you are with work, exercise and sleep.
From there the program is built around the things you want back. Two men the same age, the same operation and the same surgeon routinely need quite different programs.
confirm which assessment tools are used in clinic – e.g. real-time ultrasound, bladder diary, pad weight testing – and at which sites
What is involved
What men's pelvic health
physiotherapy involves
Most men with continence or pelvic floor problems have been told to do pelvic floor exercises, but very few have had anyone check that they are doing them correctly. Assessment comes first: confirming that the right muscles are contracting, relaxing and coordinating, and understanding what your bladder is actually doing across a day.
Around prostate surgery, the work starts before the operation where there is time. Learning and practising the correct contraction beforehand means you are not learning it from scratch in the weeks after surgery. After the operation, rehabilitation is progressed against measured recovery rather than a fixed schedule.
For pelvic pain, the emphasis is often the opposite – teaching muscles that are overactive to relax – alongside education and graded return to activity.
What treatment can include
- Pelvic floor muscle assessment
- Verified pelvic floor training
- Pre-prostatectomy preparation
- Post-prostatectomy rehabilitation
- Bladder retraining
- Bowel management
- Pelvic floor relaxation and down-training
- Pelvic and perineal pain management
- Return to exercise and work
The goal
What we are working toward
- Make sure you are contracting the right muscles, the right way
- Start before surgery where there is time
- Reduce leakage and urgency as quickly as possible
- Manage pelvic pain and overactivity
- Return you to work, exercise and confidence
- Leave you able to explain your own recovery
Your first appointment
What an assessment looks like
Everything is explained before it happens, in a private room.
- Your history
Symptoms, any surgery or radiotherapy, bladder and bowel habits, and what matters most to you. - What assessment involvesAn explanation of the options so you can decide what you are comfortable with.
- Pelvic floor assessmentConfirming whether the pelvic floor is contracting and relaxing correctly.
- Bladder pictureWhere helpful, a bladder diary to see what is happening across a normal day.
- What we foundA plain explanation of the anatomy and what surgery has changed, if relevant.
- The planA program built around your results and your timeline.
Our model of care
Settle. Build. Sustain.
The same three stages we use across the practice, applied to this service — all of them inside Equip.
Stage 1
Settle
Assessment, verified pelvic floor contraction, and a clear explanation of the anatomy and the timeline. Where possible we start before surgery.
Stage 2
Build
Progressive pelvic floor and whole-body loading, integrated with your return to work and exercise.
Stage 3
Sustain
Review spacing out as continence and confidence return, with a maintenance programme you keep.
Equip — what all three are for
Too often, men are given a leaflet and little else. We take the opposite approach – by the end, you should be able to explain your own recovery to your urologist.
Before surgery
Starting before the operation,
where there is time
Where a man is referred to us before his prostatectomy, we use that window. The point is to have the contraction verified and the program already familiar before it is needed, rather than learning it in the weeks after surgery.
This is the part of the service our own research has been built around, and it is the single thing we would most like GPs and urologists to know is available.
If surgery is already booked, call the clinic and ask whether there is time to be seen beforehand.
What we offer
Our programs and services
Prostate surgery rehabilitation
Assessment, teaching and individualised pelvic floor rehabilitation before and after prostatectomy.
Pelvic floor assessment
Checking what the muscles are actually doing, rather than assuming the contraction is correct.
Pelvic and perineal pain
For chronic pelvic pain syndrome, prostatitis-type pain, and persistent perineal pain that has not settled elsewhere.
Return to work and exercise
Graded loading and a return-to-activity plan, so recovery is measured by what you can do again.
Our research
Our research: improving
outcomes for men
Men’s health and urology is the largest single field in our Clinical Research Institute’s output. The work has been done alongside urologists and covers pelvic floor function, membranous urethral length, prehabilitation before surgery and continence recovery afterwards – and it shapes what happens in the treatment room here.
20
Peer-reviewed publications in this field
23
Conference presentations
14
Years of continuous research in this area
Selected papers from this service
Preoperative pelvic floor physiotherapy improves continence after radical retropubic prostatectomy
Patel MI, Yao J, Hirschhorn AD, Mungovan SF · International Journal of Urology, 2013
Preoperative exercise interventions to optimize continence outcomes following radical prostatectomy
Mungovan SF, Carlsson SV, Gass GC, Graham PL, Sandhu JS, Akin O, Scardino PT, Eastham JA, Patel MI · Nature Reviews Urology, 2021
Preoperative membranous urethral length measurement and continence recovery following radical prostatectomy: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Mungovan SF, Sandhu JS, Akin O, Smart NA, Graham PL, Patel MI · European Urology, 2017
Our team
Meet our men's pelvic health team
Sean Mungovan
Professor · Director, The Clinical Research Institute
B.Hum.Mov, B.Ed (PDHPE), DPT
Women’s Pelvic HealthVestibular
BlacktownNorwest
Nic Toose
Physiotherapist · Research Associate, Pelvic Health
B.Physiotherapy
Women’s Pelvic Health
Women’s pelvic health and continence.
WestmeadResearch
Ainsley Byrne
Physiotherapist
B.Physiotherapy
Women’s Pelvic HealthPaediatric
WestmeadResearch
Where to find us
Available at these clinics
Book with our men's pelvic health team
Book online, or call and ask for this team.