Types of incontinence
Incontinence is a very complex issue. There are several types and degrees of incontinence, depending on symptoms and intensity of the problem. In some patients we can find at least two types of incontinence. Comparing your complaints with symptoms of types of incontinence described below, you will be able to initially determine your type of incontinence.
Types of incontinence:
- URGE INCONTINENCE
Urge incontinence - is a frequent urge to pass urine. Urge is felt even when the bladder is not completely filled. A patient cannot stop urinating and after a short while muscles of the bladder contract and involuntary loss of urine occurs.
Loss of urine may occur even when volume of liquids intake is limited. Involuntary loss of urine may happen when the patient hears or touches running water. This type of incontinence can result in visiting a toilet very often, e.g. every two hours day and night. Sometimes bed-wetting may happen. Some patients simply don’t manage to go to the toilet in time. Often the inappropriate contractions of the bladder occur regardless of the amount of urine that is in the bladder - the patient cannot stop urinating and involuntary loss of urine occurs.
This type of incontinence is often caused by injuries or infections, neurological diseases, bladder cancer or bladder stones. It concerns especially elder women. - STRESS INCONTINENCE:
Stress incontinence is related to a quick rise of pressure in the abdominal cavity, which causes involuntary leakage of urine. Patients experience this kind of increasing tension of their belly muscle for example while laughing, sneezing, and coughing and also while lifting heavy things. This type of incontinence is related to weakness of pelvic muscles, i.e. the external closing system and most often occurs in women after several childbirths, in obese people, and also in the elderly because of senile weakness of muscles.
- OVERFLOW INCONTINENCE:
Overflow incontinence is related to the blockage of the urinary tract outlet. This type of incontinence most often occurs in men because of enlargement of the prostate gland, through which the urethra goes. Because of the enlargement the urethra becomes narrow. This leads to constant leakage of small urine amounts and in that case we very often talk about dribbling incontinence. However, this dribbling incontinence can be misleading, because main characteristic of overflow incontinence is that urine constantly remains in the bladder and the bladder never gets completely empty which leads to often inflammation. In this case volume of urine may rise over 1000ml, causing sharp pain, then catheterisation is used in order to enable the bladder to empty completely.
This kind of incontinence can also occur in women and may be caused by different forms of tumours.
In overflow incontinence following symptoms may develop:
- lack of bladder control during a day or at night
- often night visits to toilet
- feeling of urge to urinate and inability to urinate
- dribbling urination with a feeling of bladder overflow
- REFLEX INCONTINENCE:
Reflex incontinence is a type of incontinence related to disordered functioning of the nervous system. A patient never feels urgency and his or her bladder passes urine automatically, emptying the bladder completely.
This type of incontinence most often occurs in individuals after spinal cord trauma, suffering from tetraplegia or paraplegia or individuals who suffer from multiple sclerosis. - INCONTINENCE FROM SURGERY:
Fistular incontinence is the rarest form of incontinence and consist in constant leakage of urine which can, for example, leak directly into the abdominal cavity or vagina. The most common reason is congenital incorrect junction of the ureters. This type of incontinence needs to be treated surgically!!! The exception is a surgically made fistula in chronic enteritis.
- PMD (Post Micturition Dribbling)
This type of incontinence concerns only men. The urethra in men is much longer that in women. After urinating (micturition) even couple of millilitres can stay in the urethra. Afterwards this may cause involuntary leakage of these few drops of urine, causing embarrassing stains on the trousers.
Degrees of incontinence:
Degrees of incontinence are related to the average volume of the urine passed (in ml) within 4 hours..
| degree of incontinence | votum of urine passed / 4h | recommended absorbency of the inco product |
| dribbling | less than 50ml | less than 150ml |
| light | 50–100 ml | 150-300ml |
| moderate | 100–200 ml | 300-750ml |
| heavy | 200–300 ml | over 1000ml |
| very heavy / severe | over 300ml | over 1500ml |
