# Novel Approach to Personalize and Monitor Therapeutic Training At Home in Chronic Pelvic Pain Management

> **NIH NIH R43** · HILLMED INC · 2022 · $246,658

## Abstract

Abstract
 Chronic pelvic pain (CPP) is a debilitating condition that negatively impacts the social and sexual quality of
life of up to 20% of American women. Pelvic floor muscle (PFM) overactivity is a condition related to myofascial
pain present in most CPP patients. Myofascial physical therapy has become the standard pelvic floor muscle
training technique for PFM tenderness and overactivity attributed to CPP. Myofascial physical therapy specifically
addresses overactive PFMs in CPP patients via manual massage and muscle stretching. PFM pain is a
multifactorial dysfunction additionally attributed to postural issues and peripheral sensitization rather than solely
myofascial pain and overactivity. Myofascial physical therapy does not address these posture and movement
impairments, which are also associated with pelvic pain. Even among the specific IC/BPS pain subtype of CPP
patients, only 59% of patients report significant symptom improvement after myofascial physical therapy.
Complementarily, movement physical therapy aims to correct postural dysfunction and aberrant movement
patterns that contribute to pelvic pain. A comprehensive pelvic floor muscle training (PFMT) protocol will address
both the myofascial abnormalities present in the pelvic floor, and the movement and postural abnormalities
originating from the hip, trunk, or leg muscles. Currently, PFMT must be performed as an outpatient physical
therapy to ensure proper execution of prescribed exercises to correct problematic interactions between the PFMs
and specific Hip/Trunk muscles. Furthermore, PFMT is a time-consuming treatment, lasting up to 12 weeks, with
up to 10 outpatient visits, leading to adherence issues that negatively affect the response rates.
 Many biofeedback tools have been developed for home use; however, none of these devices allow for
assessing and monitoring the interaction between the PFMs and problematic Hip/Trunk muscles that contribute
to CPP. No competent, objective technique or tool is currently available for guiding myofascial and movement
pattern training protocol tailored to patients to enable adaptive at-home PFMT for CPP. The PIs have
successfully developed 1) a novel vaginal high-density surface EMG technique to reliably and quantitatively
assess PFM overactivity in women with CPP, 2) a novel muscle network analysis technique to reveal the aberrant
interaction between PFMs and Hip/Trunk muscles in women with CPP. Building upon their research findings,
the PIs co-invented a novel smartphone-based wireless device, i.e., the CPP HomeTrainer, for the quantitative
and real-time self-monitoring of both PFM activation capacity and inter-muscle interactions between the PFM
and Hip/Trunk muscles to enable adaptive PFMT at home. This Phase I project will introduce a prototype of the
CPP HomeTrainer device suitable for commercialization after 510(k) clearance. The proposed CPP
HomeTrainer offers biofeedback to aid myofascial physical therapy and movement pattern trai...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10485389
- **Project number:** 1R43HD107727-01A1
- **Recipient organization:** HILLMED INC
- **Principal Investigator:** Nicholas Dias
- **Activity code:** R43 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $246,658
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2022-08-01 → 2024-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10485389

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10485389, Novel Approach to Personalize and Monitor Therapeutic Training At Home in Chronic Pelvic Pain Management (1R43HD107727-01A1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-29 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10485389. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*