When your urinary system doesn't work

A lot of different things affect your body's ability to keep urine in the bladder and to empty the bladder. Sometimes, things don't work the way they should. The most common causes of problems in controlling your bladder are illness, injury or aging.

These causes can be divided into four groups:

• Neurogenic bladder dysfunction
• Incontinence – inability to keep your urine in the bladder
• Retention – inability to empty your bladder of urine
• A combination of incontinence and retention