Urge incontinence

Urge Incontience is a form of urinary incontinence.

Urge incontinence is involuntary loss of urine occurring for no apparent reason while feeling urinary urgency, a sudden need or urge to urinate.

Causes

The most common cause of urge incontinence is involuntary and inappropriate detrusor muscle contractions.

Idiopathic Detrusor Overactivity – Local or surrounding infection, inflammation or irritation of the bladder.

Neurogenic Detrusor Overactivity – Defective CNS inhibitory response.

Presentation and pathophysiology

Medical professionals describe such a bladder as "unstable", "spastic", or "overactive". Urge incontinence may also be called "reflex incontinence" if it results from overactive nerves controlling the bladder.

Patients with urge incontinence can suffer incontinence during sleep, after drinking a small amount of water, or when they touch water or hear it running (as when washing dishes or hearing someone else taking a shower).

Involuntary actions of bladder muscles can occur because of damage to the nerves of the bladder, to the nervous system (spinal cord and brain), or to the muscles themselves. Multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's Disease, stroke, spina bifida[1] and injury—including injury that occurs during surgery—can all harm bladder nerves or muscles.

Treatment

Timed voiding or bladder training

Timed voiding (urinating) and bladder training are techniques that use biofeedback. In timed voiding, the patient fills in a chart of voiding and leaking. From the patterns that appear in the chart, the patient can plan to empty his or her bladder before he or she would otherwise leak. Biofeedback and muscle conditioning—known as bladder training—can alter the bladder's schedule for storing and emptying urine.

Surgery

Urodynamic testing seems to confirm that surgical restoration of vault prolapse can cure motor urge incontinence.[2]

Behavior

Behavior techniques for incontinence include retraining the bladder to hold more urine. The goal is to lengthen the time between periods of urination. This includes relaxation techniques and learning how to cope with urges to urinate. Fluid management is the cornerstone of all urinary incontinence. Techniques include not drinking lots of fluids and avoiding certain foods and beverages which stimulate or irritate the bladder, for example alcohol, caffeine and acidic foods. [3]