Voiding Dysfunction Causes, Symptoms, and Prognosis

Voiding dysfunction can encompass many disorders for many reasons. There can be anatomical causes of voiding dysfunction as well as neurological causes.

Urinary incontinence is when a patient is unable to control urine flow.

There are four types of urinary incontinence:

Stress Incontinence

A pressure on the abdomen and pelvis, such as sneezing, coughing or laughing, exercise will cause leak of urine.

Urge Incontinence

Sudden urge to urinate followed by leakage of urine.

Mixed Urinary Incontinence

Combination of both stress and urge incontinence.

Overflow Incontinence

Since the bladder is never completely empty this causes leakage of the overflow of urine.

Overactive Bladder

Overactive bladder occurs later in life and is a common condition. This is where the bladder has the sensation to void or spasm to void without actually stimulation from a full bladder. There is a variety of causes from neurologic to hormonal.

Non-Obstructive Urinary Retention

This condition is characterized by the inability to completely empty the bladder but not from blockage of the urinary channel. This is usually due to some underlying cause of bladder weakness. The patients will have weak of dribbling stream or urine.

A urinalysis, cystoscopy (looking into the bladder)
Urodynamics (the study of bladder function and urine flow)
Bladder scan (ultrasound of bladder which measures the amount of urine left in the bladder)

Non-surgical and Behavioral Techniques

Pelvic floor therapy is one of many treatments for voiding dysfunction. Medication, Kegel exercises, biofeedback, timed voiding and bladder training are a few options used by urologists.

Surgery

Several minimally invasive procedures as well as more extensive surgical procedures may be necessary to treat voiding dysfunction.

Make an appointment with your doctor if you are unable to control urine flow or have other signs or symptoms that worry you.