Improving Continence Care for Older People

Vikky Morris is Chair of the BGS Bladder and bowels Special Interest Group. She will be speaking at the upcoming event Improving Continence Care in Older People on 21 September in Manchester.

1 in 3 women and 1 in 7 men over the age of 65 experience urinary incontinence. It is a significant problem associated with falls, fractures, social isolation, depression, urinary tract infections and moisture lesions. Faecal incontinence affects up to 10% of the population, although its prevalence is much higher in older people, nursing home residents (up to 60%), patients with cognitive impairment and neurological conditions. Numbers are also likely to be an underestimate due to the stigma attached to incontinence. Both urinary and faecal incontinence are associated with great expense, both personal and to the NHS (more than 2% of the NHS budget). In addition, in older people, incontinence is second only to dementia as a reason for admission to a residential or nursing home.

July 2017 issue of Age and Ageing journal is out now

The July 2017 issue of Age and Ageing, the journal of the British Geriatrics Society is out now.  A full table of contents is available here, with editorials, research papers, reviews, short reports, case reports book reviews and more.

Hot topics in this issue include:

Care home leadership

Physical restraint

Diet and muscle function

Prescribing for frail older
adults

Treatment of overactive
bladder

The Editor’s View article gives an overview of the issue with a summary of highlights. This article is free to read and can be viewed here.

A new approach to providing continence care in an ageing population

Adrian Wagg is a Professor of Healthy Ageing at the University of Alberta, a regular author for the BGS Age and Ageing journal and General Secretary of the International Continence Society.

He will present a guest lecture on continence at the BGS Spring Meeting in March 2015. 

Incontinence is a hugely debilitating condition which affects millions of men and women worldwide.  Its incidence is rising as the proportion of people surviving into late life increases and with increasing rates of long-term conditions such as diabetes, heart disease and dementia for which it is a symptom or complication.  It has a huge impact on the lives of our patients and their caregivers, and comes at significant cost to health and social care services.  However, it remains one of the least discussed and most poorly understood conditions.

Earlier this year, along with colleagues Diane Newman, Kai Leichsenring and Paul van Houten, I undertook a review of the way continence service are organised, which was funded and supported by leading global hygiene company, SCA.

We concluded that there is a need for a greater focus on incontinence as a health and social care issue and to ensure that adequate resources are devoted to it.  In the UK, patients are still not being seen by the right professional at the right time.  The NHS needs to develop better models of multi-disciplinary working to ensure care is person-centred, and prioritises quality of life.

Continence: my conscience is clear!

Dipti Samani is a speciality trainee registrar in Geriatric Medicine working in Leicester.

As NHS Change Day approached I thought about what I could do to help raise awareness about the issues that affect my patients. I was in the continence clinic at the time and wondered if it would be too crazy to consider wearing a continence pad for the day…

Kidneys: What’s the Big Deal?

Donal O’Donoghue  is a Consultant Renal Physician at Salford Royal and is Professor of Renal Medicine at the University of Manchester.

Kidneys are amazing but so are the other vital organs. Disease of the kidney is no more important that disease of the brain or cardio-respiratory systems. Indeed one could argue it is less important because kidney disease is usually silent but it’s also common, harmful and yet treatable. The real reason however to notice the kidney function results is that they provide a window onto the functioning of the body. It’s a built-in early warning system.

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a more powerful predictor of vascular events than diabetes and the mortality of acute kidney injury (AKI) is responsible for over 12,000 preventable deaths in England each year.

Kidney Disease in Older People – why we should be involved as Geriatricians

Miles Witham is a Clinical Reader in Ageing and Health, University of Dundee, and is an Associate Editor for Age and Ageing journal.

If you are reading this post in having fought through a bad winter, overburdened by emergency admissions and colleague absences, your initial reaction to the title might well be ‘Oh no, yet another area of work that someone wants me to take on’. Having been on call this weekend, I sympathise – but allow me to illustrate why I think that the time has arrived for us as geriatricians to get involved in kidney disease.

Incontinence: nature’s call to arms

William Gibson is a Clinical Research Fellow at the University of Alberta. His clinical review New Horizons in Urinary Incontinence in Older People was recently published in Age and Ageing journal. He tweets at @drbillgibson 

Urinary incontinence, the condition in which people wet themselves by accident, is a common problem for older people. Around half of older people have “bladder trouble” such as needing to rush or get up lots of times overnight to pee, and up to one in six  will have accidents.

Despite this, many people view these bladder problems as a normal part of ageing (they aren’t), or as something that can’t be treated (they can).

Bladder and Bowel Problems in Older People

Ann Capewell is a Consultant Physician and previously Clinical Director of Care of the Elderly at St Helens and Knowsley NHS Trust. She is Chair of the BGS Bladder and Bowel Health Special Interest Group.

Bladder and bowel problems are common but neglected areas of geriatric medicine practice. We are holding a meeting that will focus on providing comprehensive up to date information and practical tips from leading experts in the field.

The BGS Special Interest Group for Bladder and Bowel Health is holding a meeting on the 11th October 2013. This year we are focussing on the links between brain and the bladder and bowel. Topics also include bladder re-training and practical management in frail older people, organising an integrated continence service and with focused sessions on constipation, diarrhoea, bladder cancer.

This is our second meeting but with a completely different programme. The last one was rated highly so the omens are good!

Everyone with an interest in older people or a role in looking after them is welcome to attend. Please click this link for further details and an application form.