[Urinary incontinence in the aged].

Following the recent increase in the aged population, an increase in the number of cases of urinary incontinence among aged people can be anticipated. Considering the relative decrease of care-givers such as cohabitating family and increase of the cost of incontinence care, a social and national economic problem might be arise in near future. Therefore rapid steps to cope with this situation are necessary. Urinary incontinence of the aged has been mainly considered to be the problem for management and have been avoided by medical professionals until recently. Urinary incontinence is not only a problem of only aging, but generally is caused by some disease, therefore medical care might cure the incontinence or make the management of it easier. However, considering the increase in the number of elderly aged urinary incontinence patients, the number of incontinence-care professionals is very small. Help from the general practitioners is indispensable. Therefore this speech was drafted with the wish that the audiences, manly medical and geriatric doctors who usually are in contact with aged patients, may understand and become familiar with urinary incontinence of the elderly. This paper covered the physiology of urination especially in relation to the nervous system, abnormal bladder and urethral function found in urodynamic tests of elderly apparently normal persons, pathophysiological mechanism of urinary incontinence of aged people, urinary incontinence evoked as a side effect of some drugs. In order to assess and manage elderly urinary incontinence better, we must be able to recognize often there are two or more simultaneous basic underlying causes and how combinations of these cause create multifactorial mixed types of urinary incontinence.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)