, Bridge Magazine , Health Articles
Running from June 17-23, World Continence Week (WCW) is an annual initiative devised and managed by the World Federation of Incontinence and Pelvic Problems (WFIPP), with the endorsement and support of the International Continence Society (ICS), European Association of Urology (EAU) and the Ibero-American Society of Neurourology and Urogynaecology (SINUG).
It is a global initiative intended to raise awareness of bladder and bowel control issues, chronic pelvic pain and other debilitating conditions which impact greatly on the lives of patients, families and carers.
We spoke with one of WFIPP’s founding members, Mary Lynne Van Poelgeest-Pomfret about WFIPP, World Continence Week and continence from a global perspective.
How has World Continence Week grown since its inception?
World Continence Week is a key awareness-raising campaign which has been growing from strength to strength ever since WFIPP took it over as a key activity in our annual activities.
There can be a lot of stigma associated with incontinence. As a society, how can we start changing this? What kinds of public debates or dialogues should we start having?
As a society we need to address all the problems involving any form of urinary or faecal incontinence (leakage) in a very factual manner. We need accurate data and statistics. We need to stress the impact and burden that these conditions entail for patients and their families. We must strive to take incontinence out of the taboo sphere and to do so involves making a lot of noise, awareness-raising campaigns and work from the premise of a multidisciplinary approach patient advocates, clinicians, allied health professionals, researchers and official institutions in terms of influencing policy makers.
The figures speak for themselves: 1 in 3 women and 1 in 10 men suffer from some form of incontinence and it is not just an issue for the elderly.
Quite the contrary, young women especially during exercising, after childbirth, menopause and for men, as a consequence of prostate cancer, or other interventions, either after a radical prostatectomy or radiation therapy. In the case of men, these issues have only recently started to be addressed. The burden of incontinence is massive. And we need to address it now.
“Incontinence affects all sections of the population, not just the elderly, which is the commonly held belief. We have a duty to address all these questions and ultimately improve the quality of life of patients.” Mary Lynne Van Poelgeest-Pomfret, Founding Member, WFIPP