All of the patients are referred to us by the physicians who work with them, and the nursing staff at the facility. Our concern is that a lot of nursing home residents have problems with mobility so we are trying to provide the service more conveniently for them. The vast majority of people we treat improve significantly and a lot of patients become completely dry. Griebling estimated that at least 50 percent of the elderly residing in nursing homes have problems with incontinence. For the general population, it is somewhere between 35 and 50 percent.
Women constitute about two-thirds of the patient total.
These statistics are significant figure for Iowa because the state has the nation's largest per capita population of persons over age 65, and the largest percentage of persons over 85. Fortunately, more people than ever feel comfortable discussing incontinence without embarrassment, Forest said. It's kind of like cancer in that it used to be a hush-hush subject, but as more people experienced it, people began to talk about it more. Forest also said public programs on incontinence topics are in the planning stages. No confidential data is stored on or accessible from this server.