Assessing Patient-Reported Outcomes for Patients with Neurogenic Bladder

Neurogenic bladder is a term applied to a malfunctioning urinary bladder due to a neurologic dysfunction or disease of the central, peripheral, or autonomic nervous system. In a patient with a neurologic disease whose quality of life (QOL) may already be severely affected, urinary incontinence (UI) can result in further reduction of QOL. While no cures are currently available for the most common neurologic diseases, there is much that can be done to improve the QOL of people with neurologic diseases, including those with neurogenic bladder. However, in order to positively impact QOL, it must first be measured. One type of measure for assessing QOL is patient-reported outcomes (PROs). Here we review the current PROs in patients with neurogenic bladder. Assessing PROs in patients with neurogenic bladders is a difficult undertaking since the groups of patients are diversified in their neurogenic conditions and symptoms. © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media New York.