Pelvic Floor Muscle Training for Older Women with Urinary Incontinence

To review and discuss the efficacy of pelvic floor muscle training (PFMT) for urinary incontinence (UI) in older women. As opposed to UI in young and middle-aged women, UI in older women is often multifactorial. One randomized control trial (RCT) and secondary analyses from four RCTs suggest that healthy older women with UI benefit from PFMT as much as younger women. In older women with UI, 12 RCTs support PFMT as an effective treatment. Of interest, recent RCTs propose a more holistic approach to PFMT to address concurrent cognitive, gait, and balance deficits in older incontinent women. What answers did you find?: PFMT is an effective treatment for UI in older women and should be recommended as first-line treatment regardless of age. Further high-quality trials are needed to validate new PFMT holistic approaches on multifactorial aspects of UI in older women.