Thesis (M.Sc.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Physical Therapy - Department of Physical Therapy for Gynecology and Obstetrics

Background: Stress urinary incontinence is the most common type of urinary incontinence in women. It involves involuntary leakage of urine in response to abdominal pressure caused by activities, such as sneezing and coughing. The condition affects millions of women worldwide, causing physical discomfort as well as social distress and even social isolation. Objectives: The purpose of this study is to assess whether active techniques as biofeedback, vaginal cones and pelvic floor electrical stimulation provide additional benefits to PFMT in treating women with stress urinary incontinence. Methods: Search of published studies was performed in the electronic database through PubMed, Cochrane controlled trials registers (CENTRAL) and physiotherapy evidence database (PEDro) from 1990 to 2014, Data collection was performed by 2 reviewers. When there was a discrepancy, the opinion of the third reviewer was asked. A standard data extraction form used to extract the following information: characteristics of the study (design, participants, interventions and outcomes). Assessment risk of bias done by Cochrane risk of bias assessment tools used for assessing the included trials. Results: 12trials involving 682 women met the inclusion criteria; 8 trials included in meta-analysis. The results show that there was no statistically significant difference in the cure rate after adding biofeedback to pelvic floor muscles training risk ratio (RR) of 1.13 with 95% CI [0.88 to 1.47], There was no statistically significant difference in the cure rate after adding weighted vaginal cones to pelvic floor muscles training risk ratio (RR) of 1.14with 95% CI [0.56 to 2.32]. Conclusion: This review demonstrated there was no statistically significant difference in cure rate of stress urinary incontinence in females after adding active techniques to PFMT. But further studies are still needed

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