genitourinary disorders
Urinary Incontinence in Adults
Types
Incontinence may manifest as near-constant dribbling or as intermittent voiding with or without awareness of the need to void. Some patients have extreme urgency (irrepressible need to void) with little or no warning and may be unable to inhibit voiding until reaching a bathroom. Incontinence may occur or worsen with maneuvers that increase intra-abdominal pressure. Postvoid dribbling is extremely common and probably a normal variant in men. Identifying the clinical pattern is sometimes useful, but causes often overlap and much of treatment is the same. Urge incontinenceis uncontrolled urine leakage (of moderate to large volume) that occurs immediately after an urgent, irrepressible need to void. Nocturia and nocturnal incontinence are common. Urge incontinence is the most common type of incontinence in older adults but may affect younger people. It is often precipitated by use of a diuretic and is exacerbated by inability to quickly reach a bathroom. In women, atrophic vaginitis, common with aging, contributes to thinning and irritation of the urethra and urgency. Stress incontinenceis urine leakage due to abrupt increases in intra-abdominal pressure (eg, with coughing, sneezing, laughing, bending, or lifting). Leakage volume is usually low to moderate. It is the 2nd most common type of incontinence in women, largely because of complications of childbirth and development of atrophic urethritis. Men can develop stress incontinence after procedures such as radical prostatectomy. Stress incontinence is typically more severe in people with obesity because of pressure from abdominal contents on the top of the bladder. Overflow incontinenceis dribbling of urine from an overly full bladder. Volume is usually small, but leaks may be constant, resulting in large total losses. Overflow incontinence is the 2nd most common type of incontinence in men. is urine loss due to cognitive or physical impairments (eg, due to Dementia or Mixed incontinenceis any combination of the above types. The most common combinations are urge with stress incontinence and urge or stress with functional incontinence. 