Impact of supervised physiotherapeutic pelvic floor exercises for treating female stress urinary incontinence.
OBJECTIVE
Urinary incontinence is a public health problem that affects more than 200 million people worldwide. Stress incontinence is the most prevalent type. Pelvic floor muscle exercises have been used for treating it, although there is no consensus regarding their application. The aim of this study was to compare the results from treating female stress urinary incontinence with pelvic floor muscle exercises with or without physiotherapist supervision.


METHODS
This was a randomized, prospective, controlled trial in the Urogynecology and Vaginal Surgery Sector, Universidade Federal de São Paulo.


METHODS
Forty-four women were randomized to be treated for stress urinary incontinence with pelvic floor exercises for three consecutive months, into two groups: one with and the other without physiotherapist supervision. They were evaluated before and after treatment using a quality-of-life questionnaire, pad test, micturition diary and subjective evaluation. Descriptive analysis was used to evaluate the population. The homogeneity of the two groups was evaluated using the Kruskal-Wallis and Chi-squared tests. The success of the two groups after treatment was evaluated using the Wilcoxon test.


RESULTS
The supervised group showed statistically greater improvement in the pad test, micturition diary and quality of life than did the control group. In the subjective evaluation, only 23.8% of the control group patients were satised with their treatment. In the supervised group, 66.8% of patients did not want any other treatment.


CONCLUSIONS
Supervised pelvic floor muscle exercises presented better results in objective and subjective evaluations than did unsupervised exercises.
Zanetti
Míriam Raquel Diniz
MR
Department of Gynecology, Escola Paulista de Medicina, Universidade Federal de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil. mizanetti@uol.com.br
Castro
Rodrigo de Aquino
Rde A
Rotta
Adriana Lyvio
AL
Santos
Patrícia Diniz Dos
PD
Sartori
Marair
M
Girão
Manoel João Batista Castello
MJ
D004812:Epidemiologic Methods; D005081:Exercise Therapy; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D017060:Patient Satisfaction / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D017773:Pelvic Floor; D011788:Quality of Life; D014550:Urinary Incontinence, Stress / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000534:rehabilitation*