Serial incontinence assessment in elderly inpatient men.

Urinary incontinence is a major problem for elderly chronic care patients. As a consequence, a high level of nursing care is required for patient management. Because incontinence rehabilitation programs are usually implemented during the day shift, the incidence of incontinence according to time of day has major implications regarding patient management. Although treatment is usually based on severity, assessment of incontinence severity in elderly chronic care inpatients is difficult. In this study, a telemetric incontinence detection system was developed to identify incontinence episodes. An absorbent pad exchange technique was used for incontinence volume measurement. The study group, 66 chronic care inpatient men over 65 years old, were subject to incontinence measurements over 10 days during all nursing shifts using the telemetric incontinence detection system. The results showed a significantly high incidence of incontinence episodes during the evening nursing shift. The volume of involuntary urine loss was significantly higher during the night nursing shift. Thus, the highest level of incontinence severity occurred during the time of day when nursing staff on chronic care units is usually the lowest.