Table of Contents
Bladder Control Awareness Campaign for Women
The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) has launched the campaign, Let's Talk About Bladder Control, to help women and their health care providers talk about and treat urinary incontinence.
"Urinary incontinence can have a hugely negative impact on the social and economic well-being of people who try to cope without seeking treatment," says Leroy Nyberg, Ph.D., M.D., director of the urology and women's health research programs for NIDDK. Some elderly people even become institutionalized unnecessarily because of urinary incontinence, Nyberg said.
NIDDK wants the public to know that urinary incontinence is treatable. About 11 of the 13 million Americans affected by urinary incontinence are women, according to the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (AHCPR). The odds of improvement are excellent for women who seek treatment. The women who do not seek treatment are unaware that a physician can help improve their condition or believe their problem is not severe enough to consult a physician. Urinary incontinence costs the United States $16.4 billion a year by AHCPR's estimate.
Partners in the campaign with NIDDK are the American Uro-Gynecologic Society, the American Urological Association, the Bladder Health Council of the American Foundation for Urologic Disease, the National Association for Continence, the Society of Urologic Nurses and Associates, and the Simon Foundation for Continence.
The campaign offers easy-to-read booklets explaining the symptoms, types, and causes of poor bladder control as well as treatment options. Your Medicines and Bladder Control and Menopause and Bladder Control brochures encourage health care providers and patients to work together to select a treatment consistent with the patient's medical condition and lifestyle.
Free consumer and health care provider kits are available by calling NIDDK's National Kidney and Urologic Diseases Information Clearinghouse at 1-800-891-5388. The materials are also available online at http://www.niddk.nih.gov.