Measurement of urinary loss in elderly incontinent patients. A simple and accurate method.

A simple method which uses beam balance scales, a portable timer, a large plastic-backed absorbent pad, and tight fitting pants has been developed to measure urinary loss in incontinent patients. Complete collection of all the urine lost was achieved in 220 (94%) of 234 incontinent episodes in patients from three long-term-care wards. The attendant's subjective assessment of "wetness", as used in other methods, was shown to be an extremely crude indicator of the degree of incontinence since the weight-gain in pads judged subjectively as being "wet" was anything from 0.7 to 341 g and there was considerable overlap between the weights of pads judged to be "dry", "damp", or "wet". In 6 healthy volunteers the mean weight-gain per pad caused by perspiration was 1.2 g/2 h and the mean change due to evaporation/leakage, determined by means of pre-wetted pads, was 1.0 g.