Are you suffering from involuntary urination, and do you struggle to contain yourself when you suddenly feel the urge to pee, or do you leak urine when coughing? If the answer to some of these questions is ‘yes’, then fear not. There are many people suffering from the same symptoms as you.
What is urinary incontinence?
Urinary incontinence is characterised by involuntary urination. The condition can be classified into different types depending of the situation. These two types are:
- Stress-incontinence is where urination occurs involuntary when coughing, sneezing, jumping or running.
- Urge-incontinence is where you experience a sudden urge to relieve yourself, and where you cannot resist this urge until you reach the lavatory.
In this article, we focus on stress-incontinence in women.
Incontinence is a frequent problem
Presumably, 1 out of 4 people over 65 years develop urinary incontinence, and the condition is twice as frequent in women as in men. Unfortunately, out of all of the elderly people, suffering from the condition, only about 25 % of them contact their GP about the issue, although the disease often can be treated or bettered. The treatment depends on what type of incontinence you have as the cause of the two types of incontinence is different.
New app for women suffering from stress-incontinence
In Sweden, they have developed an app for women, suffering from stress-incontinence, called ‘Tät’. The app contains information about urine-leakage and lifestyle factors that can affect this disease. Moreover, the app suggests different exercises that can strengthen the muscles in the pelvic floor with the purpose of reducing the symptoms of urinary incontinence.
Research approves of Tät
A study has investigated if the use of this app can reduce the symptoms of stress-incontinence. They tested the app on a group of 123 Swedish women. The women were divided into 2 groups, where one group used the app over a 3 month-period, while the other group acted as a control group without the app. After 3 months, the women were instructed to report about whether any changes had occurred during the period.
The results of the study showed that the women, who had used the app, experienced a significant improvement in their disease. They experienced fewer symptoms of urinary incontinence, greater quality of life, fewer urine-leakages and less use of liners to cope with the incontinence. The average number of urine-leakages pr. day was reduced from 3 to 1 in the women, who had used the app, contrary to the control group, who did not experience any changes in their condition.
These results suggest that this app can be used by women, suffering from stress-incontinence, as a form of ‘self-care’. You can download the app on your mobile, making it easy and accessible regardless of your location. This form of ‘e-treatment’ has become more popular. In cases of stress-incontinence, where basic pelvic floor strengthening exercises can treat the symptoms effectively, this form of self-help is quite useful.
Many people with urinary incontinence fail to seek treatment for the disease as they either consider it an embarrassing subject of discussion or instead feel poorly treated by the health service. However, with this app you do not have to talk to others about your situation. Instead, you can deal with the issue by yourself, which was what the creators of the app intended. The app is available in Swedish and English in the App Store.
