{"doi":"10.7326/m23-3051","title":"Efficacy of a Therapeutic Pelvic Yoga Program Versus a Physical Conditioning Program on Urinary Incontinence in Women","abstract":"BACKGROUND: Pelvic floor yoga has been recommended as a complementary treatment strategy for urinary incontinence (UI) in women, but evidence of its efficacy is lacking. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effects of a therapeutic pelvic floor yoga program versus a nonspecific physical conditioning program on UI in women. DESIGN: Randomized trial. (ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT03672461). SETTING: Three study sites in California, United States. PARTICIPANTS: Ambulatory women aged 45 years or older reporting daily urgency-, stress-, or mixed-type UI. INTERVENTION: Twelve-week program of twice-weekly group instruction and once-weekly self-directed practice of pelvic floor-specific Hatha yoga techniques (pelvic yoga) versus equivalent-time instruction and practice of general skeletal muscle stretching and strengthening exercises (physical conditioning). MEASUREMENTS: Total and type-specific UI frequency assessed by 3-day voiding diaries. RESULTS: Among the 240 randomly assigned women (age range, 45 to 90 years), mean baseline UI frequency was 3.4 episodes per day (SD, 2.2), including 1.9 urgency-type episodes per day (SD, 1.9) and 1.4 stress-type episodes per day (SD, 1.7). Over a 12-week time period, total UI frequency (primary outcome) decreased by an average of 2.3 episodes per day with pelvic yoga and 1.9 episodes per day with physical conditioning (between-group difference of -0.3 episodes per day [95% CI, -0.7 to 0.0]). Urgency-type UI frequency decreased by 1.2 episodes per day in the pelvic yoga group and 1.0 episode per day in the physical conditioning group (between-group difference of -0.3 episodes per day [CI, -0.5 to 0.0]). Reductions in stress-type UI frequency did not differ between groups (-0.1 episodes per day [CI, -0.3 to 0.3]). LIMITATION: No comparison to no treatment or other clinical UI treatments; conversion to videoconference-based intervention instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic. CONCLUSION: A 12-week pelvic yoga program was not superior to a general muscle stretching and strengthening program in reducing clinically important UI in midlife and older women with daily UI. PRIMARY FUNDING SOURCE: National Institutes of Health.","journal":"Annals of Internal Medicine","year":2024,"id":429214,"datarank":0.3596842909197557,"base_score":2.3978952727983707,"endowment":2.3978952727983707,"self_citation_contribution":0.3596842909197557,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.3596842909197557,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":10,"citer_count":6,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9512,"is_data_producer":true,"deposit_databanks":{"ClinicalTrials.gov":["NCT03672461"]},"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":800692,"name":"Margaret A. Chesney","orcid":"0000-0001-6038-3486","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1231306,"name":"Michael Schembri","orcid":"0000-0002-0511-853X","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1231873,"name":"Harini Raghunathan","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":252183,"name":"Eric Vittinghoff","orcid":"0000-0001-8535-0920","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":6175,"name":"Wendy Berry Mendes","orcid":"0000-0003-4453-1201","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1231874,"name":"Sarah Pawlowsky","orcid":null,"position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":724936,"name":"Leslee L. Subak","orcid":null,"position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":88036,"name":"Alison J. Huang","orcid":"0000-0001-6344-7211","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":57,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:59:06.668462Z","pmid":"39186785","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}