Duffy & Bracken Physical Therapy, New York City

What We Treat > Incontinence

There is no need to feel embarrassed or hopeless about incontinence or pelvic floor dysfunction. It affects about 25% of all adults at some time during their lifetime -- not always in old age -- and with appropriate medical assistance from trained professionals there is a very good chance that these conditions can either be improved or cured.

Often the best treatment for these conditions is pelvic muscle strengthening, bladder training and behavioral treatment techniques provided by a trained physical therapist. A literature review by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on outcomes of stress incontinence treatments reported an 87% improvement in patients receiving pelvic muscle exercise and 70% improvement with bladder training.

Duffy & Bracken Physical Therapy provides treatment in a warm and caring environment. Our priority is to ensure that our patients feel comfortable while getting the best possible treatment and learning techniques to reduce incontinence and prevent further dysfunction. We do a complete evaluation and customize a program for each patient's individual needs. This evaluation includes a complete history of the patient's problems, postural assessment, strength testing and a brief pelvic exam. The treatment includes:

Pelvic muscle strengthening exercises.
Enhanced pelvic muscle education using biofeedback training, a technique that utilizes visual and auditory signals to measure the patient's ability to perform a muscle contraction and to relax the same muscle.
When severe muscle weakness or hyperactive bladder contractions exists then electric stimulation to the pelvic muscles may be used. This is a painless electrical current via vaginal or surface electrodes that produces a muscle contraction, which strengthens the muscle and teaches the patient to reproduce this important muscle function. In the case of a hyperactive bladder, an inhibiting stimuli can be used to relax the bladder.
Techniques to utilize the pelvic muscle to control urge and stress incontinence.
Myofascial release and massage to pelvic floor, hip and back musculature.
Education in correct exercise and movement techniques to avoid stressing the pelvic muscle during lifting, sitting, working, sports, etc.
Nutritional education to decrease bladder irritation.

Ann Duffy and Sara Lewis are physical therapists specially trained in incontinence and pelvic dysfunction treatment. Your doctor can provide you with a prescription for our specialized services.

Did You Know?

We are all born incontinent. We learn to use our pelvic floor muscles to control urine and fecal loss when we are "potty trained" as a child. Through constantly being told to "hold it" we learn to contract our pelvic floor muscles and stop the flow of urine and feces. This is a small miracle given that in most cases neither the child nor the parents know that muscle contraction is involved. We learn it so well that we do not have to think about it (like walking). When something happens to interrupt this process, i.e. surgery, childbirth, infection, menopause, repeated strain from high impact activities, coughing or constipation then the muscles need to be re-trained and strengthened again.