Physiotherapy for Urinary Incontinence
Physiotherapy for Urinary Incontinence
Pelvic physiotherapy is a branch of physical therapy that involves both internal and external examinations. These examinations are conducted to know about the underlying cause of pelvic floor issues. The pelvic floor is a part of the muscles that support different organs, including the bladder, rectum, and uterus. That means any problem or injury on the pelvic floor can take a severe turn.
Therefore, one must visit a pelvic floor physiotherapist to get help.
Issues related to pelvic floor dysfunction are common in both men and women. Some of its common symptoms include constipation, pressure in the pelvic region, pain in the pelvic area, lower back pain, discomfort during sexual intercourse, and stress urinary incontinence. Among these, urinary incontinence has become common. A third of women and men around the world are dealing with it. With age, the chances of urinary incontinence increase.
Thus, it’s essential to know its causes and what happens in it? Also, one must know how effective pelvic floor therapy for incontinence is to get immediate help when required.
What is Urinary Incontinence?
Urinary incontinence is a situation that leads to accidental leakage of urine. It often happens while performing activities that create pressure in the abdomen region, like coughing, sneezing, laughing, or lifting. A person dealing with stress urinary incontinence can experience urine leaks during the day or night. This problem can even lead to embarrassing situations where one might feel a sudden urge to urinate but cannot make it to the toilet on time.
In simple terms, urinary incontinence can be called loss of bladder control. It is seen that one in every four people aged above 40 experience this issue. But one should not think that it’s an inevitable consequence of aging. Regardless of your age or gender, urinary incontinence can affect your daily activity. And in this situation, you must get bladder physical therapy, otherwise known as pelvic floor physiotherapy.
Along with physical therapy, you may need to modify your lifestyle with some dietary changes and changes in water intake. If the urinary incontinence problem is left unattended, it can lead to severe complications like skin problems and urinary tract infections. Also, in some cases, treating urinary incontinence is not possible. But getting physical therapy, quitting smoking, and including more fibre in the diet is helpful.
What Happens in Urinary Incontinence?
During urinary incontinence, muscles around the bladder suddenly get tightened. The muscles then do not stay strong enough to pinch the urethra shut. Untreated urinary incontinence can reduce the quality of life and interest in sex and makes you feel weak.
Muscles and poor bladder behaviour may even lead to organ prolapse. Besides increasing age, other risk factors for developing mixed urinary incontinence include being overweight, family history, certain diseases, smoking, and gender, and women are more likely to develop it.
Commonly, urinary incontinence is of different types: stress incontinence, urge incontinence, functional incontinence, mixed incontinence, and urinary frequency. You can do pelvic floor exercises to stop bladder leakage, but knowing which exercises to do is imperative.
People often start doing Kegels without knowing when to do them, and more often than not, they do them incorrectly. A pelvic floor physiotherapist will help you understand the importance of exercises and, more importantly, be able to tell you which pelvic floor exercises would best assist you.
What Causes Urinary Incontinence?
Urinary incontinence can be caused by a couple of things like physical problems, underlying medical conditions, and everyday habits. You can, however, visit a physiotherapist to know the underlying cause and to get physical therapy for the bladder. Common temporary urinary incontinence causes include caffeine, chocolate, chilli pepper, artificial sweeteners, alcohol, and large doses of Vitamin C.
Besides these, urinary incontinence can also occur due to a few other factors. These include menopause, enlarged prostate, pregnancy, childbirth, changes with age, neurological disorders, and behavioral changes.
How Can a Physical Therapist Help?
Getting physical therapy for urinary incontinence is important because you can regain bladder control. Once you visit a physical therapist, they perform a thorough examination to understand the cause of urinary incontinence. Assessment will be done to figure out the pelvic floor disorders. It can include checking the muscles of the pelvis, hip, lower back, and coordination of the pelvic floor muscles. To get a better understanding, your therapist would ask you to describe your experiences and symptoms.
After that, the therapist will create a treatment program considering your results. The offered physiotherapy for urinary incontinence will help you gain control over your symptoms. Standard therapies for urinary incontinence may also include electrical stimulation, biofeedback, and muscle strengthening exercises.
Seek Help from Our Expert Physiotherapist
If you have noticed the symptoms of urinary incontinence and need help from an experienced physiotherapist, you must visit our clinic, Procure Physio. We are a team of talented therapists who take immense pride in offering the best treatment to people.
Our professionals believe that you deserve more than a rushed massage. That’s why we have created an environment where you can feel relaxed and get freedom from pain.
We offer pelvic physiotherapy, chiropractic therapy, and massage therapy. With us, you can give yourself a moment to rejuvenate your body. You can visit our website to book your appointment. Contact us for any further details.
Who Can Benefit From Urinary Incontinence Physiotherapy ?
Stress Incontinence
This kind of urinary incontinence can result from a lack of support in the pelvic floor muscles. It usually happens while laughing, sneezing, or coughing.
Stress incontinence is often a result of injury or trauma, lack of exercise, surgery in the vagina, pregnancy, tight pelvic floor muscles and episiotomy. It is also a common condition in people with anxiety and people who find it hard to wind down or relax.
Urge Incontinence
It’s a condition where a person wants to urinate, but urine leaks before they reach the bathroom. A person dealing with urge incontinence does not have strong and coordinated contraction of pelvic floor muscles.
Things like smoking, caffeine, acidic food, and sugar can irritate the bladder wall, further worsening the condition. Patients with urge incontinence also reduce their water intake to reduce the risk of leakage, which complicates the situation even more and makes bladder function worse. Meeting with a trained pelvic floor physiotherapist will help you understand how you can maintain bladder function and control leakage.
Mixed Incontinence
It’s a situation when a person experiences both urge incontinence and stress incontinence.
Functional Incontinence
A person dealing with functional incontinence might not feel a strong urge to urinate. But urine can leak in between.
Unlike other incontinence, functional incontinence is not directly related to pelvic floor muscle or bladder. It can result from confusion, psychological problems, joint pain, walkers, environmental barriers like furniture.
Urinary Frequency
It happens when a person has an overactive bladder. In this situation, a person feels an urge to empty the bladder multiple times in a day and more than once at night.
If you are dealing with these types of urinary incontinence, you must get physical therapy for bladder control.
You can book an appointment with us to see this yourself. And for any query contact us.
Faqs
A physiotherapist teaches you to perform a combination of exercises to strengthen the pelvic floor muscles. They also perform examinations to understand your condition in a better way.
If you are dealing with stress incontinence, you can get physical therapy for stress incontinence. The treatment includes exercising pelvic floor muscles and may also include pelvic muscle relaxation.
A few exercises, like kegel exercise, the bridge, squeeze & release, and squats, can help in improving the incontinence situation but the only way to know which exercises would work for you is to know the tone and condition of your muscles which is why an assessment is very important before starting any exercises.
Bladder physiotherapy includes therapies that can help a person coordinate the muscles of the pelvic floor and help improve bladder behaviour and function as well as increase bladder control.