Research Will Explore Urinary Training Methods

The College of Nursing at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, has been awarded a 3-year $327,000 grant to study pelvic floor exercises for men with urinary incontinence after prostate surgery. The study, being conducted by Joanne Patterson Robinson, PhD, RN, will focus on finding the best method to instruct men to use their pelvic floor muscles to control their bladder.

For the study, 72 men, 60 years old and older with no previous history of urinary incontinence, will be recruited early after surgery and separated into 3 groups. The first group will receive written instructions on how to exercise pelvic floor muscles. The second group will have a 1-hour training session with a demonstration of the exercise, 3 weekly follow-up calls to reinforce their training, and a recommended exercise schedule. Along with the follow-up calls and the suggested pelvic muscle exercise schedule, the third group will undergo 4 weekly hour-long training sessions, with biofeedback as a visual aid to teach and measure pelvic floor exercise performance.

To investigate the differences in the effectiveness of the different training approaches, the participants will be required to complete an interview, a pelvic muscle strength test, a 3-day bladder record, and a 24-hour pad test 4 times over the study period.