Central inhibition of refractory overactive bladder complaints, results of an inpatient training program

Overactive bladder (OAB) in children has an overall reported incidence of 16.6-17.8%, with its prevalence of 0.2-9% varying largely between age and gender. OAB is the most important burden in pediatric urology because of the limited effect of treatment. OAB with imperative urge and/or urge incontinence can often be successfully treated with urotherapy and pharmacological treatment. Nevertheless, approximately 20% of patients are considered to be therapy resistant for common treatment options. For the latter group, an inpatient cognitive and biofeedback training program for children has been developed.

Our objective is to evaluate the effect of an inpatient cognitive and biofeedback training program for children with urge complaints and urge incontinence based on overactive bladder (OAB) after failed earlier treatment by anticholinergic medication and by outpatient urotherapy. A search for predictors for success of treatment outcome is included in the study.

Seventy children with therapy refractory incontinence based on OAB went through a 10-day in-hospital training program between 2007 and 2010. The children were aged between 7 and 13 years (mean 9.29 years) and 48 (68.6%) were male. An essential part of this program is teaching the children central inhibition of their bladder to suppress bladder overactivity. Before attending this training program patients had on average 41.1 months of fruitless treatment by urotherapy and medication, and if needed preceding surgery for meatus correction or deobstruction. The training result was evaluated 6 months after completion of the inpatient training program. A questionnaire was subsequently conducted 2 years after the training to evaluate the long-term efficacy of this program.

Six months after training, evaluation showed that 30 of the 70 patients (42.9%) were free of complaints, 22 (31.4%) had a significant reduction in complaints and 18 (25.7%) had no improvement. Logistic regression analysis was used to look at several variables predicting training outcome. A higher age during clinical training was found to be a predictor for a good training outcome. After 2 years, 44 (62.9%) patients were reached for long-term follow-up. Of these patients, 28 (63.6%) reported a good effect of the training and 11 (25%) experienced no improvement in symptoms compared with before clinical training. Objectively, 26 (59.1%) were dry and 18 (40.9%) were incontinent to some extent. A total of 30 (68.2%) patients had not relapsed into urge complaints (McNemar's test P-value <0.05).

Age was found to be a predictor of a good training result, which is in line with the findings of other publications where children above the age of 8 demonstrate better and faster training results. The absolute number of participants to perform statistical analysis on was low, even though it was the number maximally achievable in this cohort, possibly explaining how other variables could not be found to predict training outcome. No differences in outpatient therapy results were observed between patients having received earlier outpatient urotherapy in our hospital when compared with being trained elsewhere. This is coherent with previous research indicating that for outpatient training, the attention offered to the child is of paramount importance. Regarding long-term follow-up, keeping in mind long-term follow-up patient numbers were incomplete, a good effect of the training was seen with a clear reduction in incontinence complaints. Far fewer children are suffering from urge complaints, although some patients had relapsed into urge complaints.

The inpatient cognitive and biofeedback training program for refractory OAB complaints has been demonstrated to cure or improve 74.3% of patients, and conveyed favorable long-term results in approximately 75.0% of patients. A higher age during clinical training was found to be a predictor for good training outcome.