"Bladder Pacemaker" Helpful in Tough Incontinence Cases
Medications and exercise help control urinary incontinence for most sufferers. More difficult cases can now be helped by a "bladder pacemaker," which works much like a heart pacemaker.
Friday, February 28, 2003
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Durham, N.C. -- Watch TV for a while and chances are
you'll see plenty of ads for medications promising to help with
urinary control. For the vast majority of persons who suffer from
urinary incontinence, some combination of drugs, exercise and
dietary changes will effectively manage the problem. Dr. Cindy
Amundsen, assistant professor in the Division of Urology and the
Division of Gynecologic Specialties at Duke University Medical
Center, says these therapies don't help approximately 20 percent of
those dealing with incontinence. But she says a new therapy,
marketed under the name InterStim, can help many of those
patients.
"This therapy modulates the open nerve input to the bladder. You could essentially say it 're-paces' the bladder, just like a pacemaker of the heart re-paces the electro-chemical signals to the heart."
Amundsen says physicians can check patients before implanting the pacemaker to test in advance how they'll respond.
"About two-thirds of the patients I test-stimulate respond to where they are 50 percent or better than they were before or with any other therapy."
