Incontinence

What is Incontinence?

• Incontinence is the involuntary loss of urine. There are two main types of incontinence: stress and urge incontinence.
• Stress Incontinence is the involuntary loss of urine during activities such as coughing, laughing, sneezing, lifting, or exercising
• Urge Incontinence is involuntary urine loss accompanied by a strong urge to go to the bathroom. Urge incontinence can be triggered by hot or cold, hearing running water, putting your key in the door, or even just thinking about using the bathroom.

What causes Incontinence?

• Stress incontinence occurs when the bladder is too mobile. The bladder becomes too mobile when the muscles in the pelvic floor become weak. Weak muscles prevent the urethra from closing, allowing urine to leak during increases in intra-abdominal pressure. Sneezing, laughing, coughing, and lifting all cause increases in intra-abdominal pressure and are common times for people with stress incontinence to experience urine leakage.
• Urge incontinence is caused by instability of the smooth muscle that surrounds the bladder, allowing the bladder to contract when you do not want it to do so. When this muscle contracts, it causes your bladder to empty.

What can I do about Incontinence?

What are pelvic floor muscle exercises?

How do I know if I am doing the exercises correctly?

Tips For Stress & Urge Incontinence

Bladder Fitness Tips

How can physical therapy help incontinence?

Links to Other Helpful Sites:
http://www.apta.org/ptandbody/index.cfm

http://obgyn.uihc.uiowa.edu/Patinfo/urogyn/kegel.htm

http://www.bladdercontrol.e-medicinehealth.com/

http://kidney.niddk.nih.gov/kudiseases/pubs/bladdercontrol/index.htm

Diagram reproduced from the brochure "You Can Do Something About Urinary Incontinence" with permission of the American Physical Therapy Association. This material is copyrighted, and any further reproduction or distribution is prohibited. All rights reserved.

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