Managing your incontinence
Are there any apps that can help me deal with incontinence?
Living in the digital age means there is an app for almost everything these days – including ones that help you manage your urinary incontinence. Here’s our list of five of the best apps out there, from ones that will help you with your bladder control exercises through to ones that will help you find the nearest toilet in an emergency.
Toilet Map
This Department of Health app is designed to let you live your life knowing that, should an emergency strike, there’s always a toilet nearby. Toilet Map provides details of more than 14,000 toilets across Australia – both public and private – including when they’re open and whether they have facilities for people with a disability. Then it charts these against a map and provides directions to help you get there fast.
Kegel Trainer
Kegel Trainer promises to give you all you need to strengthen your pelvic floor muscles and build better bladder control. The app guides you through a series of exercises using audio or visual clues, on-screen commands or even vibrating commands if you’d like to stay discreet. To prevent you from getting bored with your exercise routine, it also offers no less than 10 different pelvic floor workout sessions. To ensure you keep up with what you need to do, the app will even buzz to remind you when it’s time to get moving again.
Bladder Pal
Bladder Pal lets you work with your health provider to track how your bladder functions daily. The app tracks every drink you take and then measures it against the number of times you urinate (naturally or through leakage), as well as the number of incontinence pads you use. The app also lets you measure your bladder function score against the American Urological Association (AUA) Index and then compares it to past scores, so you can see whether your bladder function is improving or not.
iDry
The iDry app aims to help you overcome urinary incontinence by identifying and measuring the factors that make it better or worse. Like Bladder Pal, it lets you log when you go to the toilet, when you change pads and even the types of pads you use. It also lets you track your performance and any improvement so that you can estimate when you’ll be completely dry. While the app is free, you have the option to upgrade to a premium version, which allows you to create your own type of data, get access to more advanced charts and get reminders to do your Kegel exercises.
Pelvic Floor First
Developed by the Continence Foundation of Australia, the Pelvic Floor First app helps you strengthen your pelvic floor muscles. It’s suitable for people of all fitness levels and its customised workouts were developed by physiotherapists and fitness professionals to build strength without causing pelvic discomfort. The app has a range of workouts and provides visual guides on how to do every exercise. You can even build your own custom workouts so you only do exercises you enjoy.
These apps can help you better manage your incontinence, but work best if you also eat the right foods and keep your body healthy.