The Efficacy of Pelvic Floor Muscle Exercise in Patients with Genuine Stress Incontinence

Hong, Jae Yup

Abstract

In 1948, Kegel first described biofeedback therapy with perineometer for the treatment of genuine stress incontinence and reported a 90% improvement in 455 patients treated. After then, most urologists and gynecologist favored the anti-incontinence surgery in spite of the effectiveness of pelvic floor exercise. However, pelvic floor muscle exercise is regarded as ""something good to do"" before considering surgery, nowadays. This study evaluated the efficacy of the pelvic floor muscle exercise for the treatment of genuine stress incontinence patients with mild symptoms and pelvic relaxation. We treated 31 patients with pelvic floor muscle exercise with perineometer and followed up all of the patients for 3 months. Twenty seven out of thirty one cases improved incontinence symptom. Sixty five percent of cases showed less than 2 gm urine leak after one hour pad test and 48% of cases showed the increase of vaginal tone (mean 13.2mmHg) with perineometer. This study shows the improvement of genuine stress incontinence symptom is mainly due to perineal blockage just before the increase of intraabdominal pressure.