Rehabilitation in Genuine Stress Incontinence: Past and Present Experiences

Abstract

Therapies now available to the specialist for curing female stress incontinence are varied: medical, surgical or rehabilitation. The latter may seem to many to be the most recent, whereas it was first used in an attempt to cure female stress incontinence at the end of last century. After having been pratically abandoned, this method was taken up again by Kegel in 1948 and introduced into Europe in the seventies. Due to a better understanding of the physiopathological mechanisms of incontinence and a correct standardisation of rehabilitation techniques, over the last decade rehabilitation has become part of the specialist's store of knowledge when dealing with the problem of female stress incontinence.