AIMS: To compare pelvic floor muscles (PFMs) performance in women with and without stress urinary incontinence (SUI) during endurance test.
METHODS: It is a prospective case-control clinical trial. After determining PFM maximal voluntary contraction (MVC) by electromyography (EMG), women underwent endurance test, which consisted of consecutively PFM 1-sec fast contractions reaching MVC amplitude followed by 1-sec rest. Training time guided by Borg perceived exertion scale was noted. Heart rate (HR) behavior and EMG variables were assessed before and after training making a physiological analysis in both groups.
RESULTS: A total of 56 women, mean age 52.19 years old, were evaluated (26 continent and 30 incontinent women). The time that SUI and continent women took to reach fatigue (Borg 10) was 9.1 ± 4.7 and 14.19 ± 8.32 min, respectively (P = 0.006). Confirming that all women performed similar effort during the test, analysis of variance with repeated measures showed that during the endurance test both groups presented similar increase in HR, showing detectable and significant increase from resting time to Borg 10 (P < 0.001). Besides, there was similar behavior in EMG for continent and SUI women, with a decrease from the baseline resting amplitude (P = 0.003 for SUI women and P = 0.006 for continent women).
CONCLUSIONS: Women with SUI showed worse performance during an endurance test than continent women. It suggests that women have different capacity to perform PFM training. An initial evaluation based on PFM performance would help to define the best individualized PFM training.
Written by:
Burti JS, Hacad CR, Zambon JP, Polessi EA, Almeida FG. Are you the author?
Department of Urology, Federal University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.
Reference: Neurourol Urodyn. 2014 Apr 23. Epub ahead of print.
doi: 10.1002/nau.22613
PubMed Abstract
PMID: 24756987
UroToday.com Stress Urinary Incontinence Section
