Improving Continence Care in Older Women
Urinary incontinence is one of the most common conditions that afflict women as they age. Past the age of 65, more than half of women suffer from it.
Incontinence impedes a healthy lifestyle and healthy aging. Untreated, it can also lead to depression, other health problems and surgery. As well, treatment and related medical problems add more than $2.3 billion to healthcare costs annually, with significant implications for Canada’s public healthcare system.
Dr. Chantale Dumoulin, Canadian Research Chair in Urogynecological Health and Aging, aims to improve continence care for elderly Canadian women—including increasing access to first-line physiotherapy treatment—by ensuring that interventions are better targeted and can be scaled up by government healthcare services in a cost-effective manner.
During her last five years in this role, Dumoulin demonstrated the multifaceted pathophysiology of incontinence in aging women, developed client-specific, cost-effective and sustainable first-line treatments, and identified potential predictors of treatment success.
Building on this knowledge, Dumoulin’s research program will focus on three intermediate objectives: understanding the pathophysiology of incontinence in aging women; identifying the potential beneficiaries of first-line treatments by developing and validating a clinical prediction tool; and implementing cost-effective, first-line physiotherapy treatments for older women who suffer from incontinence.