Abstract
Hyperactive bladder is defined as a sense of urgency, with or without incontinence, usually with symptoms of polakisuria and nocturia. The term overactive bladder is often confused with urge incontinence, which is defined as the unwanted leakage of urine during an imperative urination.
Urgent incontinence is further divided into motor and sensory. The motor form is associated with detrusor hyperreflexia and the sensory form arises due to the increased sensitivity of the bladder.
In addition to emergencies, polakisuria (micturition more than eight times a day), nocturia (arousal due to the urge to urinate more than twice a night) and sudden uncontrollable coercion with unwanted urine leakage dominate the clinical picture of patients suffering from urge incontinence. According to the definitions and the accompanying symptoms described, the overactive bladder is easily interchangeable with urge incontinence.
However, this confusion is not very significant clinically (the treatment is essentially identical in both cases), the distinction between the two syndromes is interesting mainly from a terminological point of view. Urgent incontinence is basically just a higher degree of overactive bladder.