Women in particular are susceptible to urinary incontinence, especially during or after pregnancy when the pelvic muscles become weaker. The most common type of incontinence in young and middle-aged women is stress incontinence. Urge incontinence is more common in older women.
Many women have a combination of both stress and urge incontinence.
Non-surgical treatments are always tried first and are usually effective. For urge incontinence, the mainstay of treatment is medications and bladder retraining in an attempt to relax the bladder and reduce the contractions, thereby reducing the sense of urgency. Estrogen replacement therapy can be helpful as it thickens the tissues that support the urethra and bladder. Surgery to tighten the loose, relaxed muscles and ligaments causing the problem may be an option for certain cases of incontinence. Rather, it is a symptom of a structural, functional or neurological disorder and can be treated or improved, notes Michelle Eslami, M.D., assistant clinical professor of geriatrics.