Getting To Dry by Max Maizels

Author:Max Maizels [Maizels, M.D., Max]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harvard Common Press

Perhaps an analogy with stroke patients is helpful toward understanding how such training may awaken dormant portions of our nervous system. When an adult experiences a stroke, which results in a portion of the brain becoming incapacitated due to a lack of blood flow, the segment of the body served by this portion of the brain loses its function. Perhaps an arm may be paralyzed or a leg may fail to support walking. The brain cannot regrow or reconstruct this lost segment. So, how can physical and occupational therapists bring about such good results in stroke victims, simply by having their patients repeatedly do specific exercises that focus on "retraining" the affected arm or leg?

In the case of stroke victims, we believe that the central nervous system has "back-up" nerve bundles that are "dormant" and come to be "enlisted" and "aroused" by the process of physical therapy. In a similar manner, the enuresis alarm may encourage the brain to arouse dormant or immature nerve bundles, which now permit the children to inhibit a nighttime bladder contraction or arouse themselves to use the toilet. Perhaps, in the case of children who "outgrow" the bedwetting without any treatment, this "arousal" occurs naturally and is what happens when we think of them as "matured."

Once the training process is under way, about half of the children who use the alarm get out of bed themselves and walk to the toilet to urinate. The other half seem to start inhibiting their bladder contraction, so they do not get up at all at night.

In time, the children who have been walking to the toilet at night learn to inhibit the release of urine for longer and longer durations. Ultimately, most children who follow the alarm routine end up staying in bed all night rather than getting up to urinate. After about eight weeks of alarm use, the typical child should have an improved record of dryness at night; by about twelve weeks, most children should have complete bladder control all night long.

Will the enuresis alarm end bedwetting for every child? No, but it will for the majority of children, when it is used consistently and in conjunction with the other treatments in this book. It will not correct wetting in cases of incontinence or of primary sleep disorder, or in the relatively rare instances in which deep sleep is not a factor in the child's wetting.

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