Adults

People often think incontinence symptoms are caused by loose pelvic floor muscles. However, this isn’t always the case. In the "Hollywood" media, we often hear that we want tight pelvic floor muscles to prevent things like pelvic organ prolapse and leakage, but "tight" isn’t really the right word.

When an individual is diagnosed with incontinence, they can often feel the weight that comes with having to adapt their lifestyle to the daily use of disposable briefs, catheters, and other continence care products. Part of this weight is a never ending stream of thoughts about concealing their products in their clothing. Will their catheter be obvious? Will their briefs, also referred to as adult diapers, be noisy? Once they void their bladder, will it cause their protective undergarments to sag? Don’t fret - some of this stress can be alleviated by making simple changes to your wardrobe.

When you're born, your parent is your lifeline. They feed you, burp you, change you; you're completely dependent on their care. Then, as you grow older, you become more and more autonomous and independent of your parents, and it's a very exciting time. Your parent is still the invincible lifeline that guided you through the beginning of your life, but then things start to change. Your parents grow older, and they begin to show signs of their increasing age. It can start as small things - needing reading glasses, forgetting where they put the remote, asking for a hand to get up out of a chair, etc. However, as your parent transitions into their older years, you may have to find a caregiver for them. You might even begin to become their primary caregiver, yourself. This is where things can start to become uncomfortable. In this new role, the child becomes the surrogate parent. However, some changes don't have to be as drastic as they initially seem. Discussing intimate subjects such as continence care can be intimidating. Trust us, we know. However, there are ways to receive help. If you keep these five factors at the front of your mind, you can set both you and your parent up for success.

As women approach midlife, they may have some idea about life changes that they may start to experience, including menopausal symptoms, mood swings, or bladder leakage. Talking about menopause with girlfriends is often commonplace. Joking about hot flashes and the temperature of the room is often the norm. Women will usually discuss their mood swings and even send memes to friends that make light of this issue. What no one seems to talk about is overactive bladder and incontinence.

An overwhelming 72% of the women polled have experienced incontinence, which includes bladder leakage as well as a total loss of bladder control. The results also indicated a clear lack of education and available resources to women as they navigate these changes to their body without help or direction from their healthcare provider.