Study finds way to help women with both incontinence and osteoporosis
By Robin Caryn Rabin for The New York Times
Many women with osteoporosis also suffer from incontinence. Now a Canadian clinical trial has found that simple pelvic floor muscle training can significantly reduce leakage episodes.
Women with osteoporosis are at risk for incontinence because fractures of the lumbar spine can make them slump, putting more pressure on the pelvic floor, said Chantale Dumoulin, a professor in the faculty of medicine at the University of Montreal and senior author of the study, published online earlier this month in Menopause: The Journal of the North American Menopause Society.
In the study, 46 post-menopausal women with osteoporosis or low bone density and occasional incontinence reduced their leakage episodes by 75 percent after just 12 weekly sessions of physical therapy. A comparison group of similar women who did not get physical therapy saw no improvement, the study found. A year later, the 23 women who had three months of physical therapy maintained their improvement, while the incontinence of the 23 women in the control group, who received only education about osteoporosis, had worsened, researchers found.
