Control of Urinary Incontinence in Patients With Multiple Sclerosis

It has been estimated that there are several hundred thousand persons in the United States who have multiple sclerosis. Recent surveys have shown that there are more than 4,500 cases of multiple sclerosis in the New England states alone, and of these 2,000 exist in Massachusetts. 1 About one-third of the patients who have multiple sclerosis have distressing urinary symptoms. These symptoms consist of frequency, nocturia, urgency, incontinence, and enuresis. In the past, very little could be done to mitigate these symptoms. Therapeutic failure was, in large measure, due to attempts to restore bladder control by drugs that were used to influence the central nervous system lesion of multiple sclerosis. During the past three years I have had the opportunity to observe 85 patients with multiple sclerosis who in addition had urinary symptoms. The results of this study form the basis of this report and suggested that it was possible