Continence Geelong

About Continence Geelong

Welcome to our service – “Continence Geelong“ – The service has been established to address the needs of people in our Geelong Community living with continence issues.

Our service will provide specialised continence assessments and a management program to clients with continence issues. Our service is unique to this area offering all assessments in the clients own home. We believe that home visiting provides us with a much clearer picture of the individual client’s needs. Home assessments are far less intimidating and confronting for the client and they feel more comfortable in their own surrounds and familiar environment. We believe our home visiting service will accommodate the special needs of people living with a disability, the frail and the elderly who find having to navigate their way through large health care systems quite onerous and difficult.

We have three qualified Continence Nurse Consultants working in the service, the clinicians have in excess of 30 years’ experience working in this area across both the public and private health care industry. Our clinicians appreciate the delicate nature of bladder and bowel problems and the impact that these issues have for many people. We fully understand and will work with clients, families and carers to ensure they retain their independence, autonomy and are able to remain living in their own homes and community settings.

What is Incontinence

Incontinence is the involuntary loss of urine or faeces that is a social or hygienic problem.

Continence Geelong believes that a person in the community who lives with urinary or faecal incontinence or dysfunction has the right to a full assessment of that problem, and the option of any known therapy or management to alleviate distress or discomfort.

Our service believes that these problems can be either : cured, improved or effectively managed to reduce the negative outcomes of distress, disease or precipitous placement in hostel or nursing home care.

Who is affected?

If you or someone you care for experiences bladder or bowel control problems, you're certainly not alone. In fact, over 4.8 million Australians experience bladder or bowel control problems. The statistics below demonstrate the widespread nature of incontinence.

Urinary incontinence affects up to 13% of Australian men and up to 37% of Australian women (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report, 2006).
65% of women and 30% of men sitting in a GP waiting room report some type of urinary incontinence, yet only 31% of these people report having sought help from a health professional (Byles & Chiarelli, 2003)
70% of people with urinary leakage do not seek advice and treatment for their problem (Millard, 1998: The prevalence of urinary incontinence in Australia, Australian and New Zealand Continence Journal).