Over 65 million people in the United States are affected by and experience signs of urinary incontinence, which relates to a direct cost of $1.7B. Urinary incontinence, UI, is broken down in five distinct categories. Stress urinary incontinence is categorized by urine leakage due to weakened pelvic floor muscles and may occur when pressure is placed on the bladder. Causes include, but are not limited to exercise, sneezing, coughing, pregnancy, and prostate surgery. Urge incontinence is classified by an overactive bladder creating a feeling of need to relieve urine with causes related to damaged bladders and nerves. Functional incontinence is a secondary effect of not being able to get to the restroom. Causes are mental or physically …show more content…
incontinence market. The end users are the consumers, yet they may not have responsibility for purchasing products. Incontinence can be short term or long term and based on living arrangements or medical emergencies, and other parties can be responsible for procurement. Taking this into consideration the market should be viewed as two tiers comprised of direct consumers and care providers. The direct consumers consist of people living independently with urine incontinence or occupation related need where there is no access to a restroom such as pilots, miners, military personnel, etc.. The care providers are viewed as a separate tier because they will make purchasing decisions on behalf of the end users. The care providers include nursing homes, hospitals, and other outpatient …show more content…
Note that this figure does not include the number of patients that receive multiple catheters during their stay or catheters that must be replaced due to a failed attempt to insert. At an estimated price of $5.26, 20% * 34,878,887 = 6,975,777 catheters/yr. A major issue at hospitals using catheters is the frequency and risk of infection of patients that have been catheterized. This infection is known as a catheter-associated urinary tract infection (CAUTI) and is responsible for 40% of all infections in a hospital. The CAUTI infection increases at a rate of 5% per day with a 100% infection rate for long term