Women's Health: Body, Mind, Spirit: An Integrated Approach to Wellness and Illness. Marian C. Condon, RN, DEd, HNC. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall; 2004, Soft Bound, $60.80, 602 pages.
This book was written as a textbook for a college-level health class of both health care and non-health care majors. Ms Condon succeeded in creating a book that is easy to read and informational. The book is divided into 5 sections: Health and Healthcare, Environmental/Lifestyle Factors That Affect Health, The Emerging Healthcare Delivery System, Physical Health, and Emotional and Spiritual Health. Each section is further divided into chapters that make finding information very easy.
The Physical Health section is broken down into a chapter covering each system of the body. Each chapter discusses what is normal for that system, how to promote wellness, common illnesses in that system, and a wellness self-assessment. Each chapter also has a "New Directions" section that discusses ongoing research in surgical and pharmaceutical interventions.
Outside of basic health information, the book also covers traditional health care delivery, nontraditional, and holistic health care approaches. These sections offer both health care workers and motivated patients information on other health care options that may better meet the needs and expectations of patients. This is a helpful reference book for any women's health therapist. It is also helpful for patients who would like to further their understanding of women's health in general.
Sarah Haag
PT, Chicago, IL
Women's Health: A Primary Care Clinical Guide, Third Edition. Ellis Quinn Youngkin, PhD, RNC, ARNP, and Marcia Szmania Davis, MS, MSED, RNC, WHCNP, ANP. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall; 2004. Soft bound, 941 pages, $86.00.
This book is a good primary clinical guide in the field of women's health. The focus of the book is relatively narrow, covering promotion of gynecologic health, promotion of women's health care during pregnancy, and primary care conditions affecting women's health. The table of contents is delineated into chapters, but you have to go to the first page of the chapter to find specific topics. The index is helpful in finding specific topics; however, for a general topic, you may have to do some searching. For example, when you look up "eating disorder," it suggests you also look under anorexia nervosa, bulimia, and compulsive overeating. Once the desired topic is found, the information is complete and easy to read. Each topic includes etiology of an issue, subjective and objective data the health care provider may gather, and a prescribed course of action, such as medication, lifestyle changes, and dietary interventions. Some of the topics include delayed pregnancy, progressing physical changes during pregnancy, preparation for childbirth: counseling and classes, cardiovascular, endocrine, and gastrointestinal disorders in women. In the chapters on the promotion of gynecologic health care, topics covered include controlling fertility, infertility, vaginitis and sexually transmitted diseases, women and HIV, common gynecologic pelvic disorders, breast health, and menopause and the process of aging. Within each of those sections, such as infertility, the authors outline factors that affect fertility, diagnostic infertility evaluation, common causes, diagnoses and interventions of male and female infertility, alternative family building, as well as future trends and controversies. The book offers complete explanation of topics, as well as going beyond the scientific explanations and providing alternatives to offer patients.
This book was written for advanced practice nurses, and it is this reviewer's opinion that a reader would need a background in nursing to truly use this book as a reference for clinical practice. However, any advanced practice clinician could use the information to complement other training or education in the area of women's health.
Sarah Haag, PT
Chicago, IL
Spinal Manual Therapy: An Introduction to Soft Tissue Mobilization, Spinal Manipulation, Therapeutic and Home Exercises (2nd ed). H.W. Makovsky. Thorofare, NJ: Slack Inc; 2010. hardbound, 311 pages, $55.95.
The stated purpose of this book is to serve as an introductory text for the examination and management of spinal dysfunction. In it, Dr Makovsky draws on his more than 30 years of physical therapy practice, research, and teaching in physical therapy educational settings. Although it is called a manual therapy text, the author takes a broad view of manual therapy including soft tissue as well as joint manipulative techniques, and places them in the context of an entire intervention plan including exercise.
This text is divided into 7 sections and 27 chapters, each of which is well referenced with up-to-date literature. The introductory section reviews vertebral mechanics and the general principles of manual therapy touching some of the historical contributions to manual therapy. Although there are a few brief paragraphs on other treatment-based classification systems, the author devotes an entire chapter to the McKenzie approach, which he then uses as the basis of the examination procedure and classification in the succeeding sections.
The next 5 sections proceed in a systematic manner with chapters on examination/evaluation, connective tissue techniques, manipulation techniques, and exercise at each of the spinal regions, the pelvis, and the temporomandibular joint. The cervical section has an additional chapter on cervicogenic headaches and dizziness, and the pelvic girdle has an additional chapter on posture and stability including the use of one of Dr Markovsky's inventions-the PostureJac. Myofascial release and soft tissue mobilization, in addition to joint manipulative techniques, are detailed in clear original black-and-white photographs of techniques. Line illustrations of concepts aid in comprehension of spinal mechanics. There are a few tables in the text that show the effects of a forward head posture or summarize differential diagnosis. The special tests section in each region tends to consist more of a list of tests to consider and only a few are illustrated and fully described. The author acknowledges that these are "abridged sections" and refers the reader to other well-known physical therapy texts. The author does acknowledge the rise of clinical prediction rules and references them but does not incorporate or evaluate their use in spinal care.
The concluding section has 2 chapters. The first is essentially a critically annotated bibliography of 26 studies offered as evidence. It spans literature from the historical to more recent publications on all of the topics of the book. They are a welcome addition but it would be helpful to have these categorized by topic.
The last chapter provides a series of 14 interesting cases with multiple-choice questions about each case, designed for applying the information covered. Answers and explanations are given to the cases in a later section so that a student can challenge his or her knowledge.
The text does read easily and the short chapters allow the reader to focus on 1 area at a time. For entry-level teaching purposes, it would necessitate a second text to supplement material such as special tests. This book may also serve the needs of an experienced physical therapist, who wishes to have a clinical reference based on the McKenzie approach.
Linda A. Steiner, PT, DPT, MS, OCS
Boston, MA
Incontinence. 4th International Consultation of Incontinence, Paris. July 5-8, 2008 (4th ed). Editors: Paul Abrams, Linda Cardozo, Saad Khoury, Alan Wein, Health Publication Ltd; 2009, Book on CD, 1870 Pages, $190.00.
The purpose of this book is to present current evidence-based recommendations on all aspects of incontinence from the 4th International Consultation of Incontinence in Paris, France, from July 5 to 8, 2008. A well-known international faculty of health care professionals gathered to collaborate evidence and expertise. They were divided into 25 subcommittees, each with a specific responsibility: epidemiology, neural control, pathophysiology, assessments including outcomes measures and imaging, surgery, pharmacology, conservative management, treatment of conditions in men, women, children, neurologic, and frail elderly with urinary incontinence, fecal incontinence, pelvic organ prolapse, and painful bladder syndrome. Each committee contributed a chapter to this book. The committees ranked the evidence and gave a recommendation for each discussion point in the chapters. Levels of evidence are graded 1 to 5 as described by the International Consultation on Urological Diseases and Grades of recommendation A-D: highly recommended, recommended, optional, not recommended.
Prior to the chapters, a brief history by Dirk Schultheiss, MD, details early evaluation and treatments for individuals with incontinence. This section contains detailed drawings and ample citations for any health care professional seeking historical references. The final chapter Recommendations of the International Scientific Committee details algorithms for the treatment of fecal incontinence, pelvic organ prolapse, and bladder pain syndrome. This chapter is most useful to a women's health physical therapist in a clinical setting as it provides detailed evidence-based flowcharts for determining appropriate choices for management of many patient populations.
This text is extensively referenced with only the best and most recent references. Any health care professional treating pelvic dysfunction or performing clinical research can benefit from this text. The overwhelming amount of information provided therein makes this an excellent book on CD as a reference and guidance tool.
Meghan Swenck, DPT
Richmond, VA
Functional Pain Syndromes: Presentation and Pathophysiology. Editors: E.M. Mayer and M.C. Bushnell. Seattle, WA: Publisher International Association for the Study of Pain; 2009. Soft cover, 580 pages, $95.00.
This text approaches pelvic pain syndromes from a pain perspective and it is very insightful. The focus of the book is on the pathophysiology of the painful conditions. More than 40 authors, mostly MDs and PhDs, have contributed to this text. The book is well referenced, with most chapters listing 80 to 100 references, mostly journal articles published in the last 10 to 15 years.
The text is divided into 6 parts followed by a conclusion chapter. Part 1 covers somatic pain syndromes (fibromyalgia, low back pain, temporomandibular joint, vulvodynia). Part 2 covers visceral pain syndromes (irritable bowel syndrome, sensitive heart syndrome, painful bladder syndrome). Part 3 does an excellent job at comorbid syndromes including anxiety, depression, somatization, and chronic fatigue syndrome. Neurobiological mechanisms are covered in great detail in part 4. Autonomic nervous system dysfunction, visceral hypersensitivity, psychological amplification, genetics, and environmental influences such as abuse and trauma are reviewed in part 5. The only treatments reviewed are pharmacotherapy and cognitive-behavioral therapy in part 6.
This book provides a very in-depth review of current pain knowledge as it applies to many complex pain syndromes. It points out the many similarities of these conditions. Despite the fact that vulvodynia and painful bladder syndrome are small chapters (8 and 15 pages, respectively), the information found in other parts of the book can be used in the treatment of these conditions.
In addition, there is no mention of physical therapy treatment, exercise, or electrical stimulation. I would highly recommend this book to any practitioner looking to gain a deeper knowledge of pain physiology with application to pelvic therapy.
Beth Shelly, PT, DPT, BCIA-PMDB
Bettendorf, IA