Tratamento da hiperatividade vesical e incontinência de urgência empregando neuromodulação do nervo tibial posterior e exercícios pélvicos

Abstract

The urinary incontinence is a worldwide problem. Statistical data indicates that it affects 30% of the adult female population, compromising the quality of life of these women. Conservative treatments for urinary incontinence, in general, are cheaper and they do not cause side effects. For the proposition of a multicenter study, this research was defined aiming to investigate how effective the electric stimulation technique by using neuromodulation of the posterior tibial nerve and pelvic exercises is in the treatment of urgency/mixed bladder hyperactivity incontinence. The equipment used in the research had been developed by the biomedical engineering team of the Hospital de Clínicas at Porto Alegre. It can store in memory the period of time in which the equipment has been used as well as the stimuli intensity adjusted by the patient. By means of the equipment, we intensively stimulated electrically the patient’s posterior tibial nerve. Pelvic exercises were prescribed in order to assess the effectiveness of the neuromodulation technique. For the clinical trial, 26 women were selected and they were divided in two groups, both submitted to a sixteen weeks protocol, applied at home. During the first eight weeks, Group A was submitted to the electrical stimulation and on the remaining eight weeks, to exercises of the pelvic floor muscles. Differently, volunteers of Group B performed exercises during the first eight weeks and electrical stimulation on the last eight weeks. In each period of eight weeks of treatment, the volunteers answered the King’s Health Questionnaire and the Incontinence Severity Index Questionnaire. The analysis of the Incontinence Severity Index Questionnaire results presented a reduction in the urinary output. For Group A, in the first eight weeks (electrical stimulation), 78.6% of the volunteers reported improvement while 21.4% reported no effects. In the last eight weeks (exercises), 78.6% perceived no effects and 21.4% have the symptoms worsened. In the first eight weeks of the Group B (exercises), 50% of volunteers reported the worsening of symptoms and 33% felt no effects and 16,7% reported a reduction in the symptoms. In the last eight weeks (electrical stimulation), 8.4% perceived no effects and 91.6% reported improvements. By comparing the two techniques, we verified that while the patients were submitted to the application of electrical stimulation, there was significant improvement on the perception of urinary incontinence. The technique of stimulation by neuromodulation of posterior tibial nerve with the novel instrumentation developed for homecare was efficient and the participants of the study reported significant improvement in their condition.