This course is designed to be attended live during the specific dates and times listed. By attending live, you’ll be able to harness the benefits of live discussions, timely feedback, and a collaborative environment.

Course Description: 

Persistent pelvic and musculoskeletal pain cannot be fully understood—or effectively treated—through a biomechanical lens alone. Although physiotherapists receive extensive training in anatomy, structure and movement, many clinicians find it challenging to translate the biopsychosocial model from theory into everyday practice.

This comprehensive course provides a practical, evidence-informed framework for assessing and treating the whole person. Participants will examine how biological, psychological and social factors interact to influence pain, disability and recovery. The course challenges common assumptions about pain, posture, core strength, imaging findings and tissue damage, while exploring how clinician language and treatment choices can either support recovery or unintentionally reinforce fear, dependency and a sense that the body is broken.

The Fit-for-Purpose Model offers clinicians a structured approach to persistent pain through three interconnected domains:

• Conviction: beliefs, expectations, emotions and psychological flexibility
• Connection: sensory-motor awareness, regulation and nervous-system adaptability
• Condition: physical capacity, mobility, strength and tissue health

Participants will learn to assess these domains using clinical conversations, validated screening tools and physical examination findings. Treatment can then be matched to each patient’s presentation, preferences and readiness for change.

The course explores evidence-informed strategies including pain education, cognitive and behavioural skills, sensory-motor retraining, graded exposure, cardiovascular exercise, meditation, breathing practices, yoga, qi gong, expressive writing and progressive relaxation. Manual therapy and other passive interventions are reframed as potential adjuncts within a broader active rehabilitation plan—not as stand-alone solutions.

Emphasis is placed on patient-centred communication and a collaborative partnership that moves clinicians away from the role of “fixer.” Participants will develop greater confidence in discussing psychosocial contributors without dismissing the patient’s physical experience, recognizing factors that fall within physiotherapy scope, and determining when interdisciplinary referral is appropriate.

Clinical barriers—including limited appointment time, patient and clinician beliefs, uncertainty, and conflicting approaches within healthcare teams—will be addressed throughout the course. Participants will leave with practical strategies for making realistic, incremental changes that bring biopsychosocial care into everyday pelvic and musculoskeletal practice.

Course Objectives

Upon completion of this course, participants will be able to:

1. Explain why a biopsychosocial approach is necessary for the assessment and treatment of persistent pelvic and musculoskeletal pain.
2. Recognize and challenge common pain myths related to tissue damage, posture, core strength, structural “wear and tear,” and imaging findings.
3. Describe the relationship between pain, sensitization, psychosocial distress, sensory-motor dysregulation, physical conditioning and disability.
4. Apply the Fit-for-Purpose Model to assess the interconnected domains of Conviction, Connection and Condition.
5. Screen for relevant psychosocial and sensory-motor factors in all patients with persistent pelvic or musculoskeletal pain—not only those perceived as complex.
6. Select and use validated questionnaires, including the DASS-21, 3PSQ, Central Sensitization Inventory, Insomnia Severity Index and Fremantle questionnaires, to support clinical reasoning.
7. Interpret screening results within the broader clinical presentation without using questionnaires as stand-alone diagnostic tools.
8. Identify factors within physiotherapy scope and recognize when referral to another healthcare professional is indicated.
9. Match evidence-informed interventions to the individual patient’s pain drivers, goals, preferences, readiness and functional needs.
10. Integrate psychologically informed strategies such as pain education, cognitive and behavioural skills, graded exposure, mindfulness, breathing, relaxation and expressive writing into physiotherapy practice.
11. Use movement-based approaches, including cardiovascular exercise, sensory-motor retraining, yoga and qi gong, to address nervous-system sensitivity, altered body awareness, generalized tension and reduced physical capacity.
12. Position manual therapy and other passive modalities as adjuncts within an active, multimodal treatment plan while minimizing messages that may promote fear, dependency or a “broken body” mindset.
13. Communicate pain science in a validating, patient-centred manner that supports self-efficacy, therapeutic alliance and shared decision-making.
14. Develop an individualized, interdisciplinary treatment plan that integrates biological, psychological and social contributors to persistent pain.
15. Identify barriers to biopsychosocial implementation and create a realistic plan for introducing incremental changes into clinical practice.
16. Reflect on personal clinical assumptions, become more comfortable with uncertainty, and adopt an ongoing approach to professional growth and change.

Audience: This course is open to all healthcare professionals.

Prerequisites: None – although the course title does include 'Level 3' in it, this course can be taken as a stand-alone course.

Schedule

Date/Time: 5:00pm - 8:00pm ET (Toronto). Please convert to your local time zone. Each course runs for 4 sessions. 

Delivery Format

This course is designed to be attended live during the specific dates and times listed. By attending live, you’ll be able to harness the benefits of live discussions, timely feedback, and a collaborative environment.

Instructor

Carolyn Vandyken, BHSc (PT), Registered Physiotherapist

Carolyn graduated from McMaster University in 1986 with a bachelor’s degree in Physiotherapy and has practiced in a wide variety of clinical settings, focusing primarily on orthopedics. She has been a McKenzie credentialed physiotherapist since 1999 and has been a member of the Canadian College of Medical Acupuncture since 2002.  She received a certificate in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Healthcare Professionals from Wilfred Laurier University in 2016. Her clinical focus changed to Pelvic Health and Incontinence in 2001.

Carolyn was the co-founder of Pelvic Health Solutions, a Canadian-based post-graduate teaching company. She sold her interest in this company in 2019.

Carolyn is the co-owner of Reframe Rehab, a teaching company engaged in breaking down the barriers internationally between pelvic health, low back pain and pain science. 

Carolyn presents extensively internationally on pelvic health, low back pain and central pain mechanisms.  She has published several framework articles on integrating central pain mechanisms into clinical practice, a pain education book, and several chapters in textbooks on pelvic pain and central sensitization.  She is actively involved in research with Dr. Sinead Dufour at McMaster University, as well as Dr. Judith Thompson at Curtin University.  She has published multiple studies on the connection between low back pain and pelvic floor dysfunction as well as co-created a screening questionnaire for sensory-motor dysregulation in perineal pain.

Carolyn won the prestigious Woman of Distinction award from the YWCA in 2004 for her work in pelvic floor rehabilitation. Carolyn won the distinguished Education Award from the Ontario Physiotherapy Association in 2015.  Carolyn was recently awarded the Medal of Distinction from the Canadian Physiotherapy Association in 2021 for her work in pelvic health and pain science.

She co-owns her practice in Muskoka, Physio Works Muskoka along with her daughter, Brittany Vandyken.