Pelvic floor muscle training helps reduce urinary incontinence in women

Leakage of urine when a person coughs or sneezes (stress incontinence) or from involuntary contraction of the bladder (urge incontinence) is a common problem for people living in the community.

It is more frequent in women, increases with age, and is particularly common among people in residential care. Pelvic floor muscle training (PFMT) has been recommend as a therapy since the late 1940s.

A systematic review published in the latest update of The Cochrane Library concluded that women with stress, urge, or mixed urinary incontinence treated with PFMT have fewer leakage episodes per day than those given no treatment, placebo drug, or inactive control treatments. They are also more likely to report cure or improvement.

“Overall there is some support for a general recommendation that PFMT is an effective first-line management program for women with stress, urge or mixed urinary incontinence,” says lead author Jean Hay-Smith, a lecturer in the Rehabilitation Teaching and Research Unit in the Department of Medicine at University of Otago, New Zealand.

“The data suggests in the case of stress incontinence PFMT might be most useful in women between the age in their 40s and 50s, and then only when they are involved in a supervised program that lasts for at least three months” says Hay-Smith.

The authors point out that this is the first in a series of review of PFMT for urinary incontinence in women. Future reviews will consider whether one approach to PFMT is better than another; whether PFMT is better than other treatments; and whether PFMT adds benefit to other treatments.