ABSTRACT
Overactive bladder (OAB) symptoms in older people result in a profound and debilitating loss in quality of life for millions of older people in the United States. The incidence of overactive bladder symptoms increases markedly with each passing decade of life. Symptoms of urinary urgency and urge urinary incontinence are often severe and devastating life events for older people. A self-imposed social isolation occurs in older people who experience OAB symptoms, which markedly reduces their quality of life. At a time in an older person’s life when quality of life can be as important to the individual as survival itself, OAB symptoms have the capacity to deprive the older individual of the quality of life that was their greatest aspiration for their later years.
