Efficacy of the Pilates method and the manometric biofeedback in menopausal women with urinary incontinence

Abstract

The urinary incontinence is an involuntary loss of urine, classified as stress, urge and mixed urinary incontinence. The prevalence of this dysfunction negatively affects people’s life quality and the physiotherapeutic treatment is recommended as the first option. The biofeedback and the Pilates method are among the physiotherapeutic techniques. The aim of this study was to verify the efficacy of the physiotherapeutic treatment for urinary incontinence using the Pilates Method and the manometric biofeedback in menopausal women. The study was carried out in the clinic of the State University of Western Paraná and the sample was made up with 14 women, divided in two groups. Group 1 was submitted to the treatment with biofeedback, and group 2, with the Pilates method. Both performed thirty-two sessions and were evaluated before and after the short (after twenty-two sessions), medium (after thirty-two sessions) and long-term treatments (after two months without interventions), by using the Urinary Incontinence Questionnaire ICIQ_SF and a Data Collection Form. Both the groups presented statistically significant results in the intra-group comparison, related to the frequency of the monthly urinary losses, the strength of the pelvic floor rapid fibers, the severity of the urinary incontinence and its impact on women’s life quality. About the duration of the maintained contractions, only the biofeedback presented statistically significant differences. There was no statistically significant difference between the groups. Both the techniques were efficient in the variables analyzed, except in the duration of the maintained contractions.