Ever had an accidental leak during sneezing, coughing, or laughing? Believe it or not, you're one of millions of people affected by stress incontinence, a process that occurs frequently in women. Stress incontinence occurs because of weakness in the muscles that control urine flow going into and out of the bladder. These muscles can swell out of control, leading to accidental leakage due to pressure placed on the bladder through physical activity.
While this can be embarrassing and inconvenient, the good news is that physiotherapy by incontinence rehab physiotherapist can offer a highly effective solution. In this blog, we will explore how physiotherapy can help manage stress incontinence and restore your confidence.
Stress incontinence is a condition that arises once the pelvic floor muscles, responsible for support of the bladder and urethra, weaken. Many factors cause the weakening of these muscles. These include pregnancy, childbirth, the effects of aging, changes in hormones caused by menopause, and high-impact sports. When these muscles lose their strength, they fail to lock in urine.
Physiotherapy for stress incontinence treatment is striving to gain strength in the pelvic floor muscles and to regulate bladder control. A number of ways exist whereby a better pelvic floor can be achieved by using physiotherapy. Some ways of achieving a better pelvic floor are:
The core of physiotherapy is a set of exercises called typically Kegel, which means the patient is supposed to fortify those muscles that maintain the bladder, uterus, and bowels. Incontinence rehab physiotherapists will teach you how to contract and then relax these muscles to restore their strength and endurance. Correct and frequent exercise can have a very significant effect on reducing leakage of urine and improving control over the bladder.
It can sometimes be tricky to know if you are contracting the correct pelvic floor muscles. Biofeedback is a technique physios can use to monitor the activity in the muscles in real-time. Small sensors are placed on the skin around the pelvic area and report any activity to a computer that plots contractions of those muscles. This can help you better understand how to contract the muscles and make exercises more effective.
In some instances, it can be part of the treatment if the pelvic floor muscles are so weak they cannot contract. This is a special type of treatment where small electrical pulses have to be sent through to the muscles to make them contract. This can help the muscles regain strength and control. Electrical stimulation is particularly useful for people who cannot exercise using the Kegel exercises on their own.
Bladder training involves controlling the urge to urinate by gradually increasing the intervals of visits to the bathroom. This can be assisted by a physiotherapist through bladder training programs that would result in a regular bladder-training schedule and consequently. This technique, when combined with exercises for the pelvic floor muscles, can improve bladder control significantly.
Even postures and breathing will impact the pressure applied to your pelvic floor muscles. Your physiotherapist will educate you about appropriate postural alignment along with optimal ways of breathing to eliminate unnecessary strain on your pelvis. Simple postural modifications such as diaphragmatic breathing can help reduce the excessive stress applied to the pelvic floor over the bladder and increase the functioning of pelvic muscles.
Benefits of physiotherapy for the management of stress incontinence include:
You don't have to let your stress incontinence become a cause for anxiety that clouds the rest of your life. Incontinence rehab physiotherapists offer several simple, painless avenues by which you may recover strength in the pelvic floor muscles and better control your bladder again.
Dr. Leena Daware, a trained physiotherapist, has a wide knowledge of pelvic rehabilitation and also shows clients how to free themselves from stress incontinence. As one of the best physiotherapists in Mumbai, she closely works with various specialists who come in for treatment purposes on the premises.
