Ankle Position May Help Control Incontinence in Women

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Certain ankle positions, by influencing posture and the tilt of the pelvis when standing, can facilitate pelvic floor muscle activity. The technique may be a useful add-on to pelvic floor training exercises intended to help women with stress urinary incontinence.

Dr. Gwo-Jaw Wang and colleagues from Kaohsiung Medical University School of Medicine, Taiwan, studied 39 women (average age 59 years) with clinically diagnosed stress urinary incontinence. The participants engaged in testing the changes in pelvic floor muscle activity during various pelvic tilt angles created by standing with the feet horizontal, flexed up, or flexed down.

The women stood in these positions with the help of an adjustable tilt platform that set the ankles at the appropriate angle. The researchers used an intravaginal probe to measure pelvic muscle activity.

Pelvic floor muscle contraction was greatest when the ankles were flexed upward, and least when they were flexed downward, the investigators report in the journal Urology.

Overall, they observe that an upright standing position with the ankles flexed up facilitated the forward tilt of the pelvis, "which in turn increased effective pelvic floor muscle activity to its greatest point."

Also, they point out that "there is a connecting relationship among pelvic floor muscle activity, abdominal muscle strength, and pelvic tilt tendency, which is worthy of additional investigation."

SOURCE: Urology, August 2005.