Bell and pad alarm effectively treats enuresis in kids with neurodevelopmental disorders: Study
Australia: A recent study in the Journal of Pediatric Urology evaluating the efficacy of a bell and pad enuresis alarm therapy in children with neurodevelopmental disorders found the treatment to be effective.
In children with neurodevelopmental disorders, there is a high prevalence of enuresis (bedwetting). Despite this, research regarding treatment for this group has been neglected. The effectiveness of treatment using bell and pad alarm therapy is not well reported especially in those with neurodevelopmental disorders. Sharynn Schuster, RMIT University, Bundoora, Victoria, Australia, and colleagues, therefore, sought to compare the treatment efficacy of practitioner-assisted bell-and-pad enuresis alarm therapy for children with neurodevelopmental disorders and typically developing children.
For this purpose, the researchers utilized the data of Apos et al. (2018), a retrospective medical record audit collected from multiple clinical settings across Australia, including a total of 2986 patient records (3659 treatment records). The participants were children aged 5-16 years. Children with a neurodevelopmental disorder (n = 158) had a clinical diagnosis present in the medical history of attention deficit disorder, autism spectrum disorder, or intellectual disability.
Treatment success was defined as ≥ 14 dry nights. Relapse was defined as one symptom recurrence per month post-interruption of treatment, as defined by the International Children's Continence Society definitions.
The study yielded the following findings:
- The success rate for children with neurodevelopmental disorders was 62% and typically developing children was 78%.
- There was no significant difference between the number of treatments received or relapse rates by those children with a neurodevelopmental disorder and typically developing children.
- The summary figure shows the percentage of children in each group after their first treatment who were successful (success defined as dry for ≥ 14 days), who succeeded (dry for ≥ 14 days) but then relapsed, and those who showed no success.
- The percentage of children with no NDD who were successfully dry after the first treatment was 78%.
- Children with ID had success after the first treatment of 59%, the lowest of all groups analyzed.
"The type of alarm therapy reported in this study is effective for treating enuresis in children with neurodevelopmental disorders," wrote the authors. "Further research in the treatment of enuresis in children with neurodevelopmental disorders is needed."
Reference:
The study titled, "Treating enuresis in children with neurodevelopmental disorders using bell and pad alarm," is published in the Journal of Pediatric Urology.
DOI: https://www.jpurol.com/article/S1477-5131(21)00347-8/fulltext
