The big health taboo

Last week marked the start of Continence Awareness Week during which incontinence featured as the key 'health focus' on Bupa.com providing details on different aspects of the problem, how it can be prevented and treated.

Incontinence has always been a health topic no one much likes to mention. BUPA, however, remains committed to helping break down this major taboo and raising awareness of how to prevent the condition that surprisingly affects one in three women today. Help is at hand and many people suffering with incontinence have already been helped by specialist BUPA continence physiotherapists working throughout its network of 36 hospitals. An up-to-date factsheet is also available from BUPA's extensive health information directory.

It is a little known fact that incontinence is not an embarrassing problem that just afflicts the elderly. Neither is it an inevitable and incurable consequence of childbirth. Incontinence is often caused by weak pelvic floor muscles following pregnancy or by an overactive bladder. The good news is that it is often preventable in the first place. BUPA assistant medical director Dr Paula Franklin, offers women some tips to help prevent incontinence:

1. Reduce the amount of caffeine you consume and where possible change to decaffeinated drinks. This is because caffeine is a stimulant to your bladder and may increase the symptoms of bladder over-activity.
    
2. Make sure you drink plenty of water. This will keep your kidneys and bladder functioning and will not make you incontinent.
    
3. Practise pelvic floor exercises regularly throughout the day. The pelvic floor muscles help strengthen the muscles that keep the bladder closed. If the muscles weaken it can leak urine at inconvenient times.
    
4. Make pelvic floor exercises a part of your daily routine for the long-term. The longer you keep up an exercise, the stronger your muscles will become.
    
5. Maintain regular bowel habits and avoid constipation - this is because 'straining' can causes unnecessary pressure to the pelvic floor.

BUPA realises that due to the social stigma of incontinence, satisfied patients who are relieved of this embarrassing problem do not always recommend a good physiotherapist to friends and family in the same way as they do for other problems.

However, help is only a phone call away. BUPA hospitals have continence specialist physiotherapists who can help deal with this embarrassing problem. They provide patients with a full examination to establish the cause of incontinence. A specially tailored self-help programme is then developed, which, coupled with treatment, can usually help eliminate the problem within a few months. For further information and advice on the nearest BUPA Hospital with a continence specialist physiotherapist, call 0845 600 8822.

Treatment programmes can include a combination of the assessment of muscle power, pelvic floor exercises, electrotherapy, bladder training and dietary advice. The amount of treatment required depends on each individual patient.

You do not need to have private medical insurance to use these services; you can pay for services as you receive them. The cost will depend on what treatment each patient requires.