What this resource is
This printable handout helps a patient and prostate-treatment team record a pelvic-floor plan before or after prostatectomy. It does not choose a start date, exercise dose, catheter instruction, or continence prognosis; those decisions belong to the surgeon, continence service, physiotherapist, or other treating professional.
Print this page from the browser when a paper copy is useful. Navigation, advertising spaces, and promotional calls to action are hidden in print, while the instructions, blank fields, related context, and sources remain.
Review the on-screen version again if the page shows a newer update date.
How to use the handout
Bring the sheet to preoperative education and follow-up. Record the exact operation, clinician, approved start or restart point, catheter status, technique cue, dose, functional strategy, and review date. If instructions change after surgery, cross out the old plan clearly and date the replacement rather than trying to combine both.
Read every safety boundary before completing the fields. Keep a completed copy private because bladder, bowel, sexual-health, pregnancy, surgery, or symptom notes can be sensitive. This resource is educational and does not establish a clinician–patient relationship.
Before surgery
Preoperative teaching may help a person identify the movement before postoperative discomfort and new continence demands, but evidence does not justify one universal protocol. the Cochrane review of conservative interventions after prostate surgery reports uncertainty across interventions and outcomes. Record what the local team actually recommends instead of treating this sheet as a prehabilitation prescription.
Catheter and early recovery
Do not infer permission to perform repeated contractions while a urinary catheter is in place. Follow the surgeon or continence team’s explicit instruction. After removal, report inability to urinate, severe pain, fever or systemic illness, heavy or worsening bleeding, catheter problems, or other urgent postoperative concerns through the treatment pathway rather than trying harder pelvic-floor exercise.
Technique and daily function
The prescribed plan may include isolated practice and a brief pre-contraction before a cough, stand, or lift. Those are different tasks and should be recorded separately. Keep breathing and allow full release between efforts. Continence recovery is variable, and a pad count or dry interval does not by itself verify muscle function or predict the final outcome.
Review when progress is not straightforward
EAU guidance on male incontinence and Prostate Cancer UK guidance provide condition-specific context, but persistent leakage can still require reassessment of technique, bladder symptoms, surgery-related factors, devices, medication, and other options. Pain, urgency, emptying difficulty, or worsening leakage should not automatically lead to more repetitions.
Personal or clinician-supplied fields
Leave any item blank when it has not been assessed or agreed. Blank space means “not supplied”; it is not an invitation to invent a dose, diagnosis, treatment date, or clearance decision.
Operation, treatment centre, responsible clinician, and contact pathway
Catheter instruction and approved start or restart date
Position, cue, effort, timing, rest, repetitions, sets, and functional practice
Pad or symptom observations, stop rules, and review date
Safety and review boundaries
Pause an exercise that causes pain or clearly worsens symptoms.
Seek a qualified pelvic-health physiotherapist or other appropriate clinician when technique is uncertain, symptoms are complex, emptying is difficult, a programme is not helping, or treatment and recovery affect exercise choice.
New or severe symptoms may require medical assessment rather than an exercise review.
The page cannot examine tissue healing, muscle activity, sensation, coordination, prolapse, retention, infection, neurological function, or the reason for leakage. A completed form records observations and instructions; it does not convert them into a diagnosis or prove that the exercise was performed correctly.
Review before reusing
Date the printed copy and replace it when professional instructions, symptoms, medicines, pregnancy stage, catheter status, treatment, or functional goals change. Do not keep progressing an old plan because it is convenient.
If the resource is shared by a clinician, that clinician remains responsible for checking that the written variables and safety route fit the individual.
Related guides
Continue with Pelvic-floor muscle training before prostate surgery, when to start kegels after prostatectomy, and Why leakage can continue despite post-prostatectomy Kegels.
Sources
- Johnson EE, Mamoulakis C, Stoniute A, Omar MI, Sinha S. Conservative interventions for managing urinary incontinence after prostate surgery. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2023;4:CD014799. doi:10.1002/14651858.CD014799.pub2. Official or indexed source.
- European Association of Urology. Guidelines on the Management of Non-neurogenic Male Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms: Disease Management, conservative treatment for post-prostatectomy incontinence. Current online edition. Official or indexed source.
- Prostate Cancer UK. Pelvic floor muscle exercises. Current online patient guidance. Official or indexed source.
- Cardozo L, Rovner E, Wagg A, Wein A, Abrams P, eds. Incontinence. 7th ed. International Consultation on Incontinence and International Continence Society; 2023. Chapter 8, Pelvic Floor Muscle Training in Men and pre- and peri-operative PFMT sections. Official or indexed source.