Pelvic floor muscle training for the management of urinary incontinence in elderly women: a randomized controlled trial.

Funded Activity Summary

Urinary incontinence is associated with significant personal shame and social stigma and affects around 10% of Australians. one-third of women over 60 years of age. Incontinence limits physical activity and this in turn can lead to loss of independence and poorer general health. Fewer than one-third of those with regular incontinence seek assistance. Pelvic floor muscle re-education by physiotherapists is the most commonly recommended method of conservative management for urinary incontinence. Pelvic floor muscle training is safe and effective and should thus be offered as the first choice of treatment for stress urinary incontinence. However there is still no strong evidence for the effectiveness of this intervention in the elderly and because of a perception by medical practitioners that pelvic floor muscle re-education is only effective in younger women, relatively few elderly women are referred to physiotherapy for management of incontinence. Although in clinical practice it is customary to complement pelvic floor muscle training with other forms of conservative management of incontinence such as bladder training, a recent influential study suggested that pelvic floor muscle training and bladder training were equally effective in patients with stress urinary incontinence. It is important to distinguish the relative effectiveness of these interventions used in isolation in order to ensure that urinary incontinence is managed in the most effective and efficient way. This project will therefore investigate the effectiveness of two conservative interventions, pelvic floor muscle training and bladder-behavioural training in women with stress urinary incontinence over 70 years of age. Moreover, strong evidence that conservative intervention is effective for urinary incontinence in the elderly will result in appropriate intervention being offered routinely as the first choice of treatment in older women.

Funded Activity Details

Start Date: 01-01-2003

End Date: 01-01-2005

Funding Scheme: NHMRC Project Grants

Funding Amount: $321,240.00

Funder: National Health and Medical Research Council

Research Topics

ANZSRC Field of Research (FoR)

Geriatrics And Gerontology

ANZSRC Socio-Economic Objective (SEO)

There are no SEO codes available for this funding activity

Other Keywords

aged care | bladder training | clinical trial | elderly women | pelvic floor dysfunction | pelvic floor muscle training | quality of life | stress urinary incontinence

Related Links