The most common urinary symptoms in older adults are incontinence, difficulty urinating or pain with urination.  These symptoms may indicate an underlying problem such as infection, or prostate enlargement.  In some cases, these are normal changes of aging.

Things you can do:

1. Keep a log of symptoms that you are concerned about. These can be tracked in the MDS Manager Symptom Tracker.  Discuss these with your health care team.
2. Keep all your appointments as scheduled.
3. If you are experiencing severe pain with urination, are unable to urinate, or have blood in your urine, contact your healthcare provider immediately.
4. If you’re experiencing urinary incontinence, or need to get up frequently during the night to urinate, ask about a referral to a urologist.
5. If you are getting up frequently during the night to urinate, be certain that there is a night light and that hallways are well lit. Make sure there are no throat drugs or other items that you may trip over when getting up to the bathroom.

Additional Resources:

MDS Foundation:  multisite-demo.com      www.BuildingBlocksofHope.com

Cancer.net:  Urinary incontinence
http://www.cancer.net/navigating-cancer-care/side-effects/urinary-incontinence

Oncolink:  Incontinence https://www.oncolink.org/support/side-effects/incontinence