Toilet and micturition training help to regain control of urination.
Special training methods help to improve the urination pattern – assuming that training methods corresponding to the indication and the patient’s needs are used. If it is possible to regain control of urination at least partially through toilet and micturition training, this can improve the physical and psychological situation of the person affected and maintain his independence.
Symptoms of light degrees of stress and urge continence or “mixed incontinence“ resulting from both types can usually be improved with continence training. Additional pelvic floor training has a supportive effect in stress incontinence.
Toilet training - Adaptation of the emptying rhythm to the individual bladder capacity
The person affected learns a new emptying rhythm through toilet training.
The goal of toilet training is to forestall the critical filling level of the bladder through timely, quasi prophylactic urination. The practical conduction of toilet training requires the preparation of an exact micturition diary.
In the next step the "prophylactic" trips to the toilet are fixed individually based on micturition diary. The carer’s job during toilet training is to remind the person affected regularly of the timely trips to the toilet until he has surely learned the new rhythm and goes to the toilet on his own at the specified times – even if he does not have an urge to urinate yet.
Micturition training – active prolongation of short micturition intervals
The goal of training is the control of the micturition reflex, which simultaneously prolongs short micturition intervals and increases the bladder capacity.
With urge micturition the bladder signals that it is necessary to urinate but not that this must take place immediately. Normally there is enough time to go to the toilet. This is however more difficult for people who suffer from the signs and symptoms of urge micturition due to age- and/or disease-related processes.
This is where micturition training comes in. People afflicted with these signs and symptoms of urge micturition must be motivated to keep calm when urge micturition occurs and to suppress it with extreme concentration. In the effort to suppress urge micturition, it can be very helpful if the person affected has learned to tense his pelvic floor muscles.
It is very important to give the person affected security during training and to spare him “unpleasant experiences“ through the right absorbent incontinence products. Feeling completely secure also motivates the person to continue training once it was started. Then the time intervals between the occurrence of urge micturition and emptying should be prolonged slowly – by 20 minutes about every three to four days – until a bladder capacity and acceptable micturition intervals appropriate for the person’s age are achieved.
