Genitourinary dysfunction in a geriatric outpatient population.

Clinical and urodynamic findings in 167 women and 96 men, aged 65 years and older evaluated consecutively during a four-year period in an outpatient urodynamic laboratory, are presented and compared with findings from other studies of geriatric populations. Seventy-three percent of the patients (81% of the women and 60% of the men) presented with symptoms of incontinence, most commonly of the mixed type. Although pathological lesions such as tumors and stones were rare, urodynamic abnormalities were common. Urodynamic evidence of sphincter weakness in women and detrusor motor instability were the most common urodynamic findings among patients who presented with incontinence. Close to 20% of patients who presented without incontinence also had one or more of these findings. Approximately one-third of patients had multiple urodynamic findings, emphasizing the complexity of the pathophysiology, diagnosis, and treatment of genitourinary dysfunction in many geriatric patients. Despite the long duration of symptoms in most patients, the majority were substantially improved after diagnosis and treatment of the specific genitourinary and urodynamic abnormalities detected.