Pelvic Floor Therapy for Older Women With Urinary Incontinence—Can Group-Based Training Reduce the Population-Level Burden of This Condition?

More than a third of women aged 60 years or older experience urinary incontinence, a condition leading to depression, social isolation, caregiver burden, and admission to long-term care facilities. Although first-line management of incontinence in women includes exercises to strengthen pelvic floor support for the bladder, conventional pelvic floor muscle training (PFMT) relies on repeated one-on-one training sessions with pelvic floor physical therapists or other certified health care specialists. This type of intensive, individual rehabilitation therapy is costly, and access to certified pelvic floor therapists in the community is limited. Not surprisingly, most older incontinent women in the community never receive effective training in PFMT or any other form of behavioral therapy for incontinence.