Urinary incontinence in the elderly

For many people, a trip to the bathroom is something they can easily delay. But for people who suffer from urinary incontinence-the involuntary leaking of urine-holding it in isn't an option.

Although incontinence can happen at any age, it is more common in older adults. According to the National Association for Continence, one in five individuals over the age of 40 suffer from overactive bladder or urgency or frequency symptoms. In the nursing home population, at least 50 percent of residents have elderly urinary incontinence. so we can see that the directo cost of urinary incontinence 8€ billion annually) is greater than the cost of breast, cervical, uterine and ovarian cancers combined.

I remember leaving the Health Center to treat those patients who were in nursing homes. If I saw 20 patients, 15 were bedridden and with diapers. It's amazing that occurs many problems of incontinence in older people, especially in women. I have to highlight a comment that said our Clinical Nursing teacher, she claimed that Asian women were least had incontinence problems because in schools and hospitals, women were taught a series of exercises to strengthen the pelvic muscle (Kegel exercises). This demonstrates how culture influences in health status. If we could only raise awareness to undertake a series of exercises would be saving millions of euros in its infancy, operations and drugs.

For that the physician, nurses, nursing assitans, physical therapists, occupational therapists and facility management need to be actively involved in the development, communication, and implementations of hte plan.However, no staff memebers should consider themselves too important to respond to the needs of patients. A succesful plan can improve the seld-esteem of residents and enhance the perceptions of the level of care held by family members and the community.

As we see, again preventing acquires a major role in health, I always say, through prevention, education and change bad lifestyles, we would get to increase life expectancy, we would have a much healthier life and many of the diseases affecting our society today (especially cardiocirculatory) will become extinct.

Bibliography

• Ouslander J. Urinary Incontinence in the Elderly. PMC. 1981 December ; 135(6):482–491. Available from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1273322/

• Lily A. Urinary Incontinence in the Elderly. 2004: Available from: http://www.med.upenn.edu/gec/user_documents/UIinelderly_Arya_Geriatrics.pdf