Prevalence of incontinence

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Orange

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I've seen a lot of conflicting figures on the prevalence of incontinence and was wondering if anybody could shed some light on how prevalent it actually is. Personally, I'm not incontinent in the least. I had some problems with bedwetting but those ended when I hit puberty.

Here's some of the figures I'm talking about:

Depends says that 65 million people in the US suffer from urinary incontinence, which is about a fifth of the population. However wikipedia says that urinary incontinence only affects 24% percent of "older" adults in the US, as well as 5% of 10 year olds, 1% of 18 year olds. Other statistics say that incontinence affects anywhere from 1 in 50 to 1 in 75 teenagers. WebMD says that only 13 million adults suffer from urinary incontinence, which is only 5% of the population, but goes on to say that anywhere from 20-30% of young women, 30-40% of middle aged women and over half of older women suffer from incontinence, which contradicts their initial figures.

Add in to all that a story that circulated on a lot of financial news sites that youth and adult diaper sales are breaking records and project huge amounts of growth (>10% yearly sales growth) and that analysts project that the adult/youth diaper market capitalization will overtake the baby diaper market cap by the early 2020s.

So what's the deal with the figures being all over the map? Is incontinence becoming more common or just better diagnosed? Or are diapers just becoming a more commonly accepted way to deal with incontinence?

Though I can't really remember much about it before I was in third grade, my own bedwetting problem wasn't bad enough to warrant wearing diapers or pull-ups at home and I never went in to a doctor, it was enough just to wash my sheets when it happened. The only time I ever wore them past the age of 5 was when I spent the night at my daycare lady's house and at my Grandparents'. One theory I have is that perhaps minor incontinence like what I had is both more frequently referred to a doctor's office and more frequently managed by wearing diapers every night, as opposed to just occasionally, but I don't really have any evidence to back up that assertion.

What do you guys think?
 
It's not like there's ever been an incontinence question included with the general population census. Different sources are just making their own educated guesses based on what limited info they have to work with.

Depends is probably basing it on sales alone. Wiki and WebMd are probably basing it on how many people visit their site. And so on. So yeah, you're going to get a lot of different numbers.
 
True, different sources = different results. It also depends on how those two different sources really treat being "incontinence". Is it like they take into account light versions of IT, somebody gotta wake up in night to take a pee for example or if in deep sleep they leave a few drops in their pants or the IT that most of us here has, that requires us to wear a diaper. I don't think there should be such big differences in data, so something is wrong for sure, but if you count only serious IT with diapers use there will be much less % of population than any of those sources state.
 
NAFC says 25M in the US. that's roughly 7.7% of the population and isn't broken out into age groups.

65M seems like a grossly inflated stat...most sources I see are closer to the NAFC number. I've seen a similar number in medical journals which I'd trust more than the Depend number.

If anything the numbers are probably low too as there are likely lots of people who don't even tell their doctor about it.
 
I think the stigma of wearing a diaper (at least for older people not necessarily elderly) is going away. The big companies that make and market adult diapers know what they're doing, the space on the supermarket and pharmacy shelves that have adult IC products is getting bigger and bigger every year.
 
Very true! I would add that they are more and more in visible spots as well in the promotions and newsletters.


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Incontinence is a larger issue than we think it is, most people due to the stigma keep thier diaper needs to them selves and wont even tell thier family doctor. it all the diaper manufacturers posted thier true sales figures for units sold I think we all would be surprised by the real numbers
 
With baby boomers getting up there in age, incontinence reports are going to vastly expand. Many of the baby boomer women who have given birth didn't know about kegal exercises and are now experiencing leaking.
 
Theres so much advertising for incontinence products now that you have to believe its more common than previously believed. I think the term 'incontinence' though may be somewhat misleading because it suggests general loss of daytime and/or nighttime control. I suspect that for most though incontinence is intermittent much of the time. I remember when I finally got nighttime bladder control in my early teens but that didnt prevent occassional accidents after that which became more common when I later started drinking alcohol. And then many years later for medical reasons I started losing bladder and bowel control but not all at once and not permanently as Ive gone through periods where its been controlled. If you wet the bed a few times a month as I do, or have ocassional daytime accidents as I do are you incontinent? I still make the attempt to be dry. If you include the entire population that has various levels of incontinence I think the percentage would be a lot higher than people realize.
 
Rob110 said:
Incontinence is a larger issue than we think it is, most people due to the stigma keep thier diaper needs to them selves and wont even tell thier family doctor. it all the diaper manufacturers posted thier true sales figures for units sold I think we all would be surprised by the real numbers

A lot of those figures would be inflated by ABDL sales though. And they know it too.
 
rocketman said:
A lot of those figures would be inflated by ABDL sales though. And they know it too.

Do you think the ABDL community is large enough to have a big effect on the overall market for adult IC products? I suspect its not. I think an aging population and more awareness about the availability of products is the major change.
 
mikesecret said:
Do you think the ABDL community is large enough to have a big effect on the overall market for adult IC products? I suspect its not. I think an aging population and more awareness about the availability of products is the major change.

The existance of dozens of abdl diaper companies alone proves otherwise.
 
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