Article Medically Reviewed By:
Harriette Scarpero, MD
Assistant Professor Department of Urologic Surgery Vanderbilt University Medical Center Nashville, TN
Overview
What Is It?
Incontinence is the inability to control urination. It is not a disease, but rather a symptom that can be caused by a wide range of conditions and can often be improved or cured.
If you're leaking urine when you cough, laugh or sneeze, or you have sudden urges to go to the bathroom that are so intense you fear you won't get there in time, you're probably experiencing incontinence. The inability to control urination is a treatable, and often curable, problem faced by morethan 13 million Americans. About 10 to 30 percent of women and 1.5 to 5 percent of men up to age 64 suffer from urinary incontinence. While at least half the elderly experience the condition, and it is a major cause of admission to nursing homes, it is often mistakenly thought of as a problem suffered only by older people. In fact, incontinence can occur at any age.
Although the majority of incontinence cases can be improved or cured, it is estimated that less than half of those afflicted ever discuss their problem with a health care professional. Instead of recognizing incontinence as a treatable condition and pursuing treatment, many women view it as an embarrassing consequence of aging and wear protective pads or diaper-like products. Health care professionals recommend using absorbent products during treatment or as a solution of last resort when other therapy fails, but not as the first and only treatment for incontinence. Left untreated, incontinence can lead to skin rashes and infections, loss of self-esteem, emotional distress and self-imposed isolation. You don't have to suffer incontinence in silence, as there are several treatment options from which you and your health care professional can choose.
Incontinence is not a disease—it's a symptom that can be caused by a wide range of conditions, such as diabetes, stroke and nerve diseases, like multiple sclerosis. Weak pelvic floor muscles or an overactive bladder muscle may also cause leakage. Your urinary tract includes two kidneys, two ureters, the bladder and the urethra. Your kidneys remove waste and water from your blood to produce urine. Urine travels through muscular tubes called the ureters to the bladder. The bladder is a balloon-like organ composed of muscle, connective tissue and nerves that expands as it fills with urine. Urine is stored in the bladder until it is released from the body through a tube called the urethra.
Circular muscles, called the urinary sphincters, control the activity of the urethra. The sphincter muscles prevent the loss of urine. The sphincters close off the base of the bladder—like a rubber band at the base of a balloon—so you do not leak urine.
As the bladder fills with urine, you have an increasing urge to urinate. Sensory nerves in the bladder signal your brain when ...
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