Physiotherapy management of urinary incontinence in females
Open accessAbstract
Urinary incontinence (UI) is a prevalent and bothersome condition affecting women of all ages. UI can be treated with lifestyle interventions, bladder training, electrical stimulation, surgery and pelvic floor muscle training (PFMT) with or without biofeedback. There is some evidence that lifestyle interventions (such as weight reduction in obese women) and bladder training may have some effect in reducing UI. The evidence for electrical stimulation is debated. Surgery carries a risk of complications and the long-term outcome is questionable. This leaves PFMT as the main physiotherapy intervention for UI. The NICE guideline states that PFMT is just as effective as surgery for around half of women with stress urinary incontinence. There is Level 1 evidence (recommendation A) that PFMT should be first-line treatment for UI in females. This review summarises: the burden of UI for individuals and the healthcare system; background information about how PFMT can prevent and treat UI; the evidence about the effects of PFMT on female UI, with a special focus of the effect of group PFMT; and future directions for research and practice.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
One mechanism is that women learn to consciously contract the pelvic floor muscles before and during increases in intra-abdominal pressure and continue to perform such voluntary contractions as a behavior modification to prevent descent of the pelvic floor during these episodes.
“(1) Women learn to consciously contract the PFM before and during increases in intra-abdominal pressure (IAP) (also termed ‘bracing’ or ‘performing the Knack’) and continue to perform such voluntary contractions as a behavior modification to prevent descent of the pelvic floor during these episodes.”
From International urogynecology consultation chapter 3 committee 2; conservative treatment of patient with pelvic organ prolapse: Pelvic floor muscle training (2022) · cites this paper as [22]
Another mechanism is that women are taught to perform regular strength training to improve firmness and structural support of the pelvic floor over time.
“(2) Women are taught to perform regular strength training to improve ‘firmness’ and structural support of the pelvic floor over time.”
From International urogynecology consultation chapter 3 committee 2; conservative treatment of patient with pelvic organ prolapse: Pelvic floor muscle training (2022) · cites this paper as [22]
There is evidence for two mechanisms of how PFMT may be effective in prevention and treatment of stress urinary incontinence.
“Today there is evidence for two mechanisms of how PFMT may be effective in prevention and treatment of SUI [21, 22]”
From International urogynecology consultation chapter 3 committee 2; conservative treatment of patient with pelvic organ prolapse: Pelvic floor muscle training (2022) · cites this paper as [22]
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
The citation lists haven’t been fetched yet
References 78 · Cited by 80
Research works printed but not linked: 7
- Dumoulin C, Adewuyi T, Booth J, Bradley C, Burgio B, Hagen S, et al. Adult con- servative management. In: Abrams P, Cardozo, Wagg A, Wein A, eds. Incontinence. 6th Ed. Vol. 2. Committee 1; 2017:1443-1628.
- Kegel AH. Stress incontinence and genital relaxation. Ciba Clin Symp. 1952;2:35-51.
- Aoki Y, Brown HW, Brubaker L, Cornu JN, Daly JO, Cartwright R. Urinary inconti- nence in women. Nat Rev Dis Primers. 2017;3:17097.
- Bø K, Hagen R, Kvarstein B, Larsen S. Pelvic floor muscle exercise for the treatment of female stress urinary incontinence: V. Female stress urinary incontinence and participation in different sport and social activities. Scand J Sports Sci. 1989;11:117- 121.
- Mørkved S, Bø K. Effect of postpartum pelvic floor muscle exercise: a 12 month follow up. Br J Obstet Gynaecol. 2000;107:1022-1028.
- Bø K, Larsen S, Oseid S, Kvarstein B, Hagen R, Jørgensen J. Knowledge about and ability to correct pelvic floor muscle exercises in women with urinary stress in- continence. Neurourol Urodyn. 1988;7:261-262.
- Mørkved S, Bø K. Motor learning. In: Bø K, Berghmans B, Van Kampen M, Mørkved S, eds. Evidence based physical therapy for the pelvic floor. Bridging science and clinical practice. Chapter 6.1. Edinburgh: Elsevier; 2015:111-117.
- Authors
- Bø, K.
- Affiliations
- Akershus University Hospital (NO)
- Corresponding author
- Bø, Kari
- ORCID
- Bø, Kari
- Venue
- Journal of Physiotherapy
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2020-07
- Volume
- 66
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 147-154
- ISSN
- 1836-9553 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W3044976691
- Cited by
- 80
- References
- 78
- Citations by year
- 2026: 12 · 2025: 13 · 2024: 17 · 2023: 19 · 2022: 11 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 1
- FWCI
- 7.15
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Journal of physiotherapy (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- NORA - Norwegian Open Research Archives (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Funders
- Norges Idrettshøgskole
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Rheumatology › Pelvic floor disorders treatments
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Urology › Urinary Bladder and Prostate Research
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Sexual function and dysfunction studies
- Keywords
- urinary incontinence, female urinary incontinence, pelvic floor muscle training, biofeedback, stress urinary incontinence, bladder training, electrical stimulation, lifestyle intervention, weight loss, group physiotherapy, NICE guidelines
- MeSH terms
- Self-Management, Female, Humans, Prognosis, Urinary Incontinence, Low Back Pain, Physical Therapy Modalities
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
