Brunel University is holding a free one day training event giving advice to health professionals on how to tackle incontinence in older people.

The training day is being held on Wednesday 13 June by TACT3, the UK’s largest collaborative research programme, focussing on older people and continence difficulties.

Eleanor van den Heuvel, principal investigator for TACT3, from the Brunel Institute for Ageing Studies, said: "We believe that care professionals working in the frontline with older people should have the opportunity to benefit from our work so we are putting on a free one day training event (refreshments and lunch included).

"The event is aimed at health and social care professionals but informal carers and people with an interest in continence research are also welcome."

The day will include:

•The latest continence promotion workshop

•The stigma of incontinence

•Continence services as experienced by professionals and service users

•Demonstrations of prototypes of two new continence management technologies

•An exhibition with the interactive "Great British Toilet Map"

The aim of TACT3 is to reduce the impact of continence difficulties for older people by:

Improving toilet provision for older people - by investigating the problems older people have locating and using toilets when they are away from home and exploring why older people do not like or use the new automatic conveniences.

Improving understanding of continence treatment services - by exploring patient, family and professional viewpoints when people seek help for continence difficulties from the health services.

Providing assistive devices to help people with continence disability - by developing two products that have been requested by continence pad users to help older people to feel more confident and manage their condition better. The first product is a urine odour detector that will warn the continence pad user that their pad needs changing before any odour is detected by the human nose. This simple colour change device will be in the form of a small card or a piece of jewellery or other items requested by users. The other product is smart underwear that will detect a pad leak immediately and warn the wearer or carer before the leak spreads to outer clothes or furniture.

About 50 per cent of women over 40 will suffer some symptoms of urinary incontinence, with the number increasing with age; about half as many men are affected. Faecal incontinence is present in about one per cent in the general population, rising to 17 per cent in the very old and as high as 25 per cent in nursing homes.

People wanting to attend the event should call 01895 266921 or register online at www.brunel.ac.uk/bib/tact3/events, the programme for the day can be viewed at //www.brunel.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/187261/Meeting-the-Challenge-programme-Final.pdf