Effectiveness of a Hip Abductor Training in Women With Stress Urinary Incontinence

Urinary incontinence (UI) is estimated to affect 25% à 45 % women all over the world. UI is associated with a poor Quality of life, with a strong level of certainty. Stress urinary incontinence (SUI) is the second more prevalent type of UI . First-line treatment for SUI is conservative, non-drug and non-surgical treatment. Among these techniques, physiotherapist-supervised pelvic floor muscle (PFM) training (PFMT) as a first-line treatment; however, only half of women with SUI are cured with PFMT.

Brain imaging shows that PFMs (involved in continence mechanisms) and gluteal muscles can activate the same cortical region. This synergy is found if the gluteal muscles are voluntarily activated, but not if the PFMs are volontary activated alone . In women, hip abductor physiotherapy is a common practice which has already been the subject of a very extensive literature and has largely shown its effectiveness in the quality of lumbo-pelvic control, balance, quality of life and risk of fall prevention. This rehabilitation is based on exercises that induce solicitation of the hip abductors by synergistic reflex activation during a range of well-known exercises. Recent work has shown the effect of hip abductors on the activation of the PFMs . Until today, there is no literature evaluating the effectiveness of a hip abductors training program without associated voluntary contraction of the PFMs (PPM) on UI. The hypothesis of this work will be to demonstrate that a complementary training focused on the hip abductor, complementary to concomitant PFMT, would benefit from a more significant improvement in continence, and also in physical abilities and quality of life. Because balance seems involved in UI, we therefore propose to to observe the effects on the frontal balance of the pelvis. As the investigators have already done in previous studies, to identifying factors that predict the success of our interventions, investiagtors have planned to evaluate the observance and adherence of our patients .Complementary, the investigators planned to evaluate the effect of both intervention on pelvic floor muscles and hip abductors strength and endurance, pelvic organ prolapse symptoms and quality of life. For this objective, the investigators intend to compare two randomized parallel groups: Group A follow a 12 sessions supervised PFMT + home based PFMs exercices. Group B follow a 12 sessions supervised PFMT + home based hip abductor exercices.