Pelvic floor yoga has been recommended as a complementary treatment strategy for urinary incontinence (UI) in women, but evidence of its efficacy is lacking.
To evaluate the effects of a therapeutic pelvic floor yoga program versus a nonspecific physical conditioning program on UI in women.
Randomized trial. (ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT03672461).
Three study sites in California, United States.
Ambulatory women aged 45 years or older reporting daily urgency-, stress-, or mixed-type UI.
Twelve-week program of twice-weekly group instruction and once-weekly self-directed practice of pelvic floor-specific Hatha yoga techniques (pelvic yoga) versus equivalent-time instruction and practice of general skeletal muscle stretching and strengthening exercises (physical conditioning).
Total and type-specific UI frequency assessed by 3-day voiding diaries.
Among the 240 randomly assigned women (age range, 45 to 90 years), mean baseline UI frequency was 3.4 episodes per day (SD, 2.2), including 1.9 urgency-type episodes per day (SD, 1.9) and 1.4 stress-type episodes per day (SD, 1.7). Over a 12-week time period, total UI frequency (primary outcome) decreased by an average of 2.3 episodes per day with pelvic yoga and 1.9 episodes per day with physical conditioning (between-group difference of -0.3 episodes per day [95% CI, -0.7 to 0.0]). Urgency-type UI frequency decreased by 1.2 episodes per day in the pelvic yoga group and 1.0 episode per day in the physical conditioning group (between-group difference of -0.3 episodes per day [CI, -0.5 to 0.0]). Reductions in stress-type UI frequency did not differ between groups (-0.1 episodes per day [CI, -0.3 to 0.3]).
No comparison to no treatment or other clinical UI treatments; conversion to videoconference-based intervention instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic.
A 12-week pelvic yoga program was not superior to a general muscle stretching and strengthening program in reducing clinically important UI in midlife and older women with daily UI.
National Institutes of Health.
Annals of internal medicine. 2024 Aug 27 [Epub ahead of print]
Alison J Huang, Margaret Chesney, Michael Schembri, Harini Raghunathan, Eric Vittinghoff, Wendy Berry Mendes, Sarah Pawlowsky, Leslee L Subak
Department of Medicine, Department of Urology, and Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California (A.J.H.)., Department of Medicine, and Osher Center for Integrative Health, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California (M.C.)., Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California (M.S.)., Department of Medicine, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California (H.R.)., Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California (E.V.)., Department of Psychology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut (W.B.M.)., San Francisco State University, San Francisco, California (S.P.)., Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Stanford University, Stanford, California (L.L.S.).