Urge incontinence in elderly people: factors predicting the severity of urine loss before and after pharmacological treatment.

Geriatric patients with urge incontinence lose different amounts of urine and respond differently to treatment. Identification of factors predicting the amount of urine loss before or after treatment might help to select therapy. We have sought such factors in 41 elderly patients (23 women and 18 men), mean age 79 years with established urge incontinence that was urodynamically proven to be associated with detrusor hyperreflexia, who were treated with oxybutynin chloride. Urine loss was measured by 24-hour monitoring (mean 378 g/24 hour). Demographic, psychosocial, behavioral, cortical, circulatory, urodynamic, and urological factors were studied before and after treatment. Multiple regression analysis showed that, before intervention, factors predicting the amount of urine loss were fluid intake, voiding frequency, and impaired orientation on cognitive testing. After intervention, urine loss was significantly smaller (mean 259 g/24 hour). Different factors predicted the amount of this persistent incontinence: underperfusion of the cerebral cortex, reduced bladder sensation, and (again) impaired orientation. The analysis confirms that the severity of geriatric urge incontinence associated with detrusor hyperreflexia, particularly incontinence that is resistant to anticholinergic therapy, depends on cortical factors, that bladder sensation plays an important role, and that therapeutic manipulation of fluid intake and voiding frequency may offer a modest reduction in urine loss (e.g., about 40 g/day).