Incontinence

Abstract

Some say that the current generation of elderly people, raised in the Victorian era, have a secretive attitude toward matters of elimination and so tend to underreport urinary and bowel symptoms. It seems to me that a condition causing wet underwear and an unpleasant odour (that everyone else can smell) is not a circumstance that anyone would easily deal with in a business-like, forthright way. Incontinence is very unpleasant, and if one thought of it as a normal consequence of aging, and irremediable, one might not want its presence broadcast.