Comparison Between Pelvic Muscle Training and Pilates Exercises for UI in Postmenopausal Women

Summary

Introduction: Urinary incontinence (UI) is a condition that affects around 40% of postmenopausal women and is therefore considered a public health problem. Conservative treatment is recommended, and pelvic floor muscle training (PMT) is considered the gold standard for this type of condition. However, other possibilities of exercises have been studied to achieve continence, such as Pilates exercises, which focus on the stabilizing muscles and request a voluntary contraction of the muscles of the pelvic floor (PFM), it is believed that it can recruit fibers from these muscles, improving muscle function and episodes of urinary incontinence. However, the literature is still inconclusive regarding the effects of Pilates exercises on urinary incontinence and PFM function. Objective: To compare the effects of 3 months of muscle training, through TMAP and Pilates exercises on the improvement of UI in postmenopausal women. Methods: 40 postmenopausal women with urinary incontinence will be randomly assigned to two intervention groups: pelvic floor muscle training and Pilates exercises. The evaluations will be carried out before the interventions and after three months of them, and will involve the following instruments: urinary incontinence and aspects related to quality of life, assessed using the International Consultation of Urinary Incontinence questionnaire Short Form (ICIQ-UI-SF); 7-day voiding diary, used to identify possible modifiable factors related to urination and its frequency; Pad-test used to identify and quantify UI; Feeling Scale, to portray the affective valence of the exercises; Female Sexual Function Index, which will assess female sexual function; Manometric assessment of muscle strength and PFM endurance with Epi-no; and Manometric evaluation by bidigital palpation using the PERFECT test. Shapiro Wilk tests will be performed to verify normality, Student's t or Mann Whitney U test according to parametric or non-parametric distribution, ANCOVA for comparison between groups in the post-intervention, considering the 95% confidence interval (p\<0.05) . The data will be processed in the SPSS 25.0 program.

Conditions

• Urinary Incontinence

Interventions

OTHER

PFMT

The PFMT will consist of 10 maximum voluntary contractions that must be maintained for at least 6 seconds. Participants will be encouraged to sustain the maximum contraction for a longer time each week. The interval time between contractions will be the same seconds as the contraction. Participants will perform 4 sets of 10 contractions, and at the end of each set of 10 contractions, five fast contractions will be performed. Each series will be performed in one position: lying in lateral decubitus; seated; on all fours and standing.

OTHER

PE

The PE group will be instructed and reminded to voluntarily contract the PFMs during each repetition of the Pilates strengthening exercises. During the stretching exercises, the participant will be instructed not to perform the contraction. The stretching and strengthening exercises will be performed in a single series of 10 repetitions, totaling 10 exercises aimed at the main muscle groups.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Universidade Estadual do Norte do Parana

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Laís C Oliveira, PhD · Universidade Estadual do Norte do Paraná

• Raphael G Oliveira, PhD · Universidade Estadual do Norte do Paraná

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

DOUBLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

50 Years

Max Age

70 Years

Sex

FEMALE

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2022-06-01

Primary Completion

2022-12-07

Completion

2023-02-14

Countries

• Brazil

Study Locations