Urinary Incontinence

High quality physiotherapy for the Grandview-Woodland and Hastings-Sunrise communities of East Vancouver and beyond.

What is Urinary Incontinence?

Urinary Incontinence is characterized by difficulty or inability to control the flow of urine. There are several types of incontinence including:

  • stress incontinence: leakage or loss of bladder control during activities like sneezing, coughing, lifting, or jumping.
  • urge incontinence: sudden strong sensation of the need to urinate. Often referred to as an overactive bladder and may sometimes result in voiding a large or a small amount of urine, sometimes leakage can occur.
  • mixed incontinence: a combination of both stress and urge incontinence symptoms.
  • overflow incontinence: frequent dribbling of urine that occurs when there is not complete emptying of the bladder.

Real-Time Ultrasound for Pelvic Floor Muscle Training

Are you doing your pelvic floor exericses correctly?

Your physiotherapist can help you by looking at your pelvic floor muscles on ultrasound to see if you are using the correct muscles.

Studies have shown that specific training of the striated urethral sphincter can compensate for losses in strength of the pubococcygeus and bulbospongiosus and result in improved continence after prostate surgery.

Exercises to Improve Urinary Continence

Pelvic Floor Exercises

Strengthening the muscles of the pelvic floor is essential to regaining continence especially after prostate surgery. The strength, speed, and endurance of the pelvic floor are all important components of a comprehensive exercise program.

Abdominal Wall Exercises

The abdominal muscles including the rectus abdominus, internal oblique, external oblique and diaphragm are all important and can impact continence especially relating to stress incontinence. A complete continence program should include assessment of the impact of the abdominal wall muscles on the bladder and pelvic floor.

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