Neurological Work-Up for Urge Urinary Incontinence: When and in Whom?

Urge urinary incontinence (UUI) is a chronic disorder affecting 12 million men and women in the United States alone, and is characterized by involuntary loss of urine associated with urgency. UUI may be associated with detrusor overactivity (DO), which is the occurrence of involuntary detrusor contractions during a urodynamics evaluation. When DO occurs in the setting of known neurologic disease, it is referred to as neurogenic DO. The presence of DO by urodynamics warrants neurological evaluation in patients without known neurologic disease when there is subjective or objective evidence of neurologic disease, or if there is a high index of suspicion for an occult neurologic disorder.