Incontinence is a societal disease it affects more than individuals’ quality of health, it affects nursing care and health economics too. Find out more.
Bladder incontinence is a growing problem and a large-scale challenge for healthcare professionals and health economists. Teamwork is required to ensure consistent, high-quality care for patients.
Urinary incontinence describes any accidental or involuntary loss of urine connected to bladder disorders and/or the muscle structure of the pelvic floor. It affects sufferers both physically and psychologically but there are ways to reduce its impact.
We need to consider incontinence on a holistic level – improving efficiency in incontinence management as well as finding the most effective products and treatments.
Lifting the taboo
Continence has been a taboo subject for too long. But in order to develop guidelines and standards for modern care, there needs to be open discussion.
The more knowledge professionals have of sufferers and their daily challenges, the better placed they will be to offer the exact care they need. Not only will patients benefit but nurses, professionals or relatives that care for patients will save time and improve their own quality of life.
Choosing the right products
To ensure patients are able to enjoy the highest quality of life, they need modern care products that offer:
- High comfort
- High quality
- Highest possible discretion
- Reliability
- Choice
- Ease of use, particularly for self-dependent patients
- Skin protection, to prevent secondary damage
- Long-term cost effectiveness
Enabling efficient continence management
It is essential to have adequate continence management in place, on a large scale, to ensure patients with bladder loss get the best possible treatment.
With healthcare budgets under constant pressure, professionals need to put a set of standards and guidelines in place to offer a consistent quality of care. This is particularly important in nursing homes where product usage, and the time taken to change patients, needs to be factored into financial and human resource plans.
Professional programs use logistics technology to analyse individual treatment plans and process any necessary online orders. However, it is important to look at the whole value chain rather than individual products for individual patients. A holistic solution covers the education of patients and professionals, with the objective of maintaining the continence of every patient and eliminating, reducing or managing identified cases of incontinence.
Improving continence goals
There are six important steps in implementing improvements in incontinence detection and treatment:
- Early identification of incontinence risk factors and symptoms.
- Medical diagnosis of symptoms with the help of urinary records and/or diagnostic tools.
Consultation with patients and/or carers to discuss prevention, elimination, reduction or management of incontinence.
Planning of individual measurement and goal setting to monitor improvements and coping mechanisms and to rectify any damage.
Execution and continuous implementation of medical or multidisciplinary treatment via the doctor or physical therapist.
Evaluation of the efficacy of any measures taken through consistent documentation.