Medical Factors in Women. According to one 1999 study, urge incontinence is more common among older postmenopausal women who are diabetic or who reported two urinary tract infections within the past year. Obesity is also a major factor for incontinence in older women. In older men, prostate problems and their treatments affect the urinary tract and increase their risk for incontinence to the extent that the incontinence rates in men and women tend to even out. All older adults, however, are susceptible to incontinence.
Urge incontinence accounts for two-thirds of incontinence cases in the elderly.
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