BERKELEY, CA (UroToday.com) - In this study, inpatient urotherapy and follow-up results were reported from 70 therapy-refractory patients suffering from overactive bladder (OAB) in an attempt to demonstrate the efficacy of the method on both short- and long-term results in this difficult-to-treat cohort. A search for predictors of success of treatment outcome is also described.
In our opinion, the subject of overactive bladder as a cause of incontinence and urge complaints has been underexposed in the last years. For this specific cohort, our described inpatient training program has proven very effective, and articles published on the matter are limited. Ideally, this should have been done in a prospective, randomized trial and we plan to do this in the near future. Nevertheless, we believe that sharing our retrospective results is of paramount importance for these patients and would like to invite our colleagues caring for children with OAB to critically appraise our study and hopefully take our message back to the clinic.
Most important to the success of this training is the coaching done by the urotherapist. As discussed in our article, a urotherapist gives instructions on voiding habits, toilet position, constipation, and urinary tract infection prevention, combined with extensive daily supervision, motivational techniques, biofeedback of the pelvic floor, psychological counseling, and behavioral modification. If you are a professional interested in more specifics on the urotherapy offered at the University Medical Center Utrecht, feel free to contact our team of urotherapists by sending an email to .
An app (‘LUTS and the Leaky Cauldrons,’ for the Apple iPad) is currently under development corresponding to the content of our in-patient training program. The goal is to offer an excellent, modern, motivational tool which can support and sustain, in a playful way, the training received when the children are back in their own surroundings. Additionally, we would like to share a link to the movie used as an educational tool: www.hetwkz.nl/bladdertraining.
Written by:
Eelco F. J. Meijer, MD, MSc as part of Beyond the Abstract on UroToday.com. This initiative offers a method of publishing for the professional urology community. Authors are given an opportunity to expand on the circumstances, limitations etc... of their research by referencing the published abstract.
Pediatric Urology Centre, University Children's Hospital UMC Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands