Most commonly, incontinence is the inability to control the bladder leading to the leakage of urine at any time. This is termed urinary incontinence. Another form of incontinence is the leakage of bowel motions from the anus (back passage); this condition is known as faecal incontinence.

Urinary incontinence can affect people of all ages and varies in severity from the occasional slight accident resulting in dampness to a total loss of control. Different patterns of urinary incontinence can be identified, although there is frequently considerable overlap.

In stress incontinence leakage of urine occurs only when the person coughs, sneezes, lifts a heavy object or bends. This type of incontinence generally results from weakness of the muscles that control the flow of urine from the bladder. It occurs mainly in women. Another pattern of urinary incontinence results from an overwhelming urgency to pass urine, and if the person cannot get to a toilet in time, he or she is unable to hold on and the bladder empties out of control; this is known as urge incontinence. A common cause for this is urinary infection but there are many other causes.

In contrast to urge incontinence in which the person experiences the urgent desire to urinate and is aware of urinating there is a condition in which the sufferer gets little or no sensation of the need to empty the bladder. In this condition the bladder empties itself when it is full, without any conscious control; this is known as reflex incontinence and occurs when the nerves connecting the bladder to the brain are damaged through injury
(eg. spinal injury) or disease (eg. multiple sclerosis).

The fourth type of incontinence is called overflow. This results from a bladder which cannot be properly emptied and the urine dribbles away or is passed during sleep resulting in bed wetting. Enlargement of the prostate in men is a common cause of overflow. Enlargement of the prostate can also cause dribbling after passing urine.

Faecal incontinence has many causes and varies in severity from an occasional leakage to the total inability to control bowel actions. Common causes are weak pelvic floor muscles, damage to the nerves that control the anus, diseases affecting the anus, severe constipation and diarrhoea.

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