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Yoga reduces frequency of urinary incontinence
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Yoga may be a feasible alternative management strategy for ambulatory middle-aged and older women with frequent urinary incontinence, according to findings presented at the American Urological Association annual meeting.
“Urinary incontinence is extremely common among women in midlife and beyond. One in three women over the age of 50 is estimated to experience incontinence on weekly or more frequent basis. And yet less than half of women suffering from this problem report receiving any clinical treatment,” Alison Huang, MD, associate professor of medicine at the University of California San Francisco, told Healio Family Medicine.
“There is a real need for alternative approaches to treating or managing incontinence that are more accessible, more effective, and better tolerated by the over 20 million women in the U.S. population who have this problem.”
Researchers worked with an expert yoga panel to develop a group-based therapeutic yoga program focused on specialized lyengar-style techniques. Patients were randomly assigned to the yoga program, or a nonspecific muscle strengthening and stretching program, which served as the time-and-attention control.
According to the abstract, 56 ambulatory women (mean age, 65 years) experiencing daily incontinence were assigned to the yoga group (n = 28) or the control group (n = 28). Women attended classes a week and performed home practice once a week for 3 months. Voiding diaries evaluated at baseline and 3 months assessed the frequency of urinary incontinence. Additionally, study participants received the usual first-line care information and instructions of behavioral urinary incontinence management techniques, according to the abstract.
Of the 50 women who completed the 3-month trial, 75% attended more than 90% of group classes and 88% completed more than 90% of home practice hours.
Mean frequency of urinary incontinence at baseline was 24 ± 14 episodes per week. Researchers observed a 74% decrease in urinary incontinence frequency (19.3 ± 10.2 episodes per week) in the yoga group as compared to the control group, which experienced a 51% decrease (11.2 ± 17.9 episodes per week). No adverse events were reported for either intervention.
“Although this wasn't a large study ... the results provide very promising preliminary evidence that women across the aging spectrum who are suffering from urinary incontinence can learn to practice yoga to improve their symptoms,” Huang said in the interview. The majority of women in this study were over age 65, none of them were already taking yoga classes or workshops, and all of them had urinary incontinence on a daily basis at the beginning of the study.”
“If these findings are replicated in future studies, then they suggest that yoga may offer a much more accessible way for women to improve their incontinence in the community, by taking yoga classes that don't require intensive visits with specialized health care providers,” she added. – by Marley Ghizzone
References: Huang A, et al. A randomized trial of a group-based therapeutic yoga program for ambulatory women with urinary incontinence. Presented at: The American Urological Association Annual Meeting; May 18-21, 2018; San Francisco.
Disclosures: Healio Family Medicine could not confirm relevant financial disclosures prior to publication.