More than 60% of women followed by Hospital da Mulher-Caism during the pandemic had significant improvements in involuntary urine loss
A study involving women with urinary incontinence treated at the Women's Hospital José Aristodemo Pinotti Caism-Unicamp, during the pandemic, showed that a cell phone application, developed by Unicamp researchers in partnership with the Eldorado Research Institute, can be an important ally in the combating the disorder, which causes involuntary loss of urine.
The application is part of the University's Patent and Software Portfolio, managed by Inova Unicamp. It is not yet available to the public, but it can be licensed by companies and institutions interested in taking the technology to the market or applying it in their treatment and research routines.
The researchers followed 156 women who performed the exercises at home, twice a day, for 30 days, guided by the app. At the end of the period, 52% of those interviewed reported improvement in symptoms or “almost cured” and another 10,2% of women said they were cured. The work was carried out during a period in which face-to-face service for pelvic physiotherapy in health centers was hampered.
“With the monitoring of Diário Saúde, we observed that 74% of the study participants performed pelvic floor muscle training frequently. 36,5% said they performed the exercise always or almost always and another 37,8% did it daily, which is very important in rehabilitation and prognosis”, says Cássia Raquel Teatin Juliato, gynecologist, teacher and researcher at Faculty of Medical Sciences (FCM-Unicamp).
The study “Use of a cell phone application in training the pelvic floor muscles in women with urinary incontinence” was presented during the 27th São Paulo Congress of Gynecology and Obstetrics, held in São Paulo, in August, being classified among the five best of the event .
Greater adherence to treatment
Urinary incontinence is marked by the involuntary loss of urine in routine situations that require minimal effort, such as walking, sneezing or laughing. In more serious cases, the sudden urge to urinate is accompanied by the escape of urine, without the person having time to get to the bathroom.
The disorder affects 45% of women over 40 years old, but it is not exclusive to them. Younger women and 15% of men may also have the problem, which, according to Brazilian Society of Urology, is associated with different causes, including natural aging, pregnancy and childbirth.
Exercise treatment, guided by pelvic physiotherapists, also needs to be carried out at home, without the need for equipment, as explained by Andrea de Andrade Marques, a retired physiotherapist from Unicamp. Despite its low cost and ease of access, however, pelvic floor training is associated with reduced patient compliance rates.
“The idea is that the Diário Saúde app is a kind of assistant, a home guide, capable of complementing the guidance given by the physiotherapist, which encourages the patient to exercise as often as necessary”, says Marques, who participated in the development of the program Health Diary computer icon.
Home guide
In the application, professionals establish the ideal training program for each patient, focusing on rapid or sustained contractions. Furthermore, the application presents animations that guide the user on the exercise position (standing, sitting or lying down), in a similar way to what is worked on in the physical assessment in person with the physiotherapist.
“Another feature of the application is the visual stimulus, similar to an electromyography, as a guide for the exercise, which shows when the participant should contract and sustain or contract and relax, along with the duration of the contraction and the number of repetitions”, explains Camila Carvalho de Araújo, physiotherapist specializing in women's health and researcher at Unicamp.
The application's features also involve musical art to improve the user experience. The exercises are accompanied by an exclusive melody, which helps maintain the rhythm of the training, composed by singer and vocal coach Adriana Barea, bachelor and master in Music from the Institute of Arts (IA-Unicamp).
“Health and music are, each in its own way, made up of cycles, rhythms, cadences. Thus, the language of sounds communicates powerfully with our lives. The measures and melody were designed to inform women, in a playful, intuitive and pleasant way, about the exercises to be performed at each stage of pelvic muscle training”, highlights the musician.
It is also possible to receive notifications in the form of reminders so that the patient does not forget about training and all this discreetly. This is because the developers avoided any direct reference to the disorder in the visual proposal, which is a source of embarrassment for those who suffer from it.
After training, the person has the option of recording their progress. Thus, the application also works as a recording diary. The data is stored in the cloud so that healthcare professionals and researchers can monitor the patient's rehabilitation process. “The tool helps standardize interventions and record, contributing to greater methodological rigor”, says Andrea.
Technology transfer
Diario Saúde, to be made available for use by the population, needs to be licensed by companies interested in taking the solution to the market, by hospitals or physiotherapy clinics and institutions that seek to increase patient adherence to treatment or by research centers that use a protocol of exercises for studies. The application is part of Unicamp's Software Portfolio, managed by the Inova Unicamp Innovation Agency, which is responsible for making the connection between inventors and the market. More information on the site.
Article originally published on the website of the Innovation Agency - Inova Unicamp.
