London, Jan 15 (IANS): Studies have shown that dance can help you stay in shape, reduce stress, make friends and more. Now, it may also help you prevent urine leakage!

For senior women suffering from urinary incontinence, dance helps them contract their pelvic floor muscles when they perform any daily activity to prevent urine leakage, says a promising study.

For the study, the researchers at the Institut universitaire de gériatrie de Montréal in Canada and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich added a series of dance exercises via a video game console to a physiotherapy programme for pelvic floor muscles.

The researchers picked 24 elderly women for the study. The results post-dance sessions were promising.

“Out team registered a greater decrease in daily urine leakage than for the usual programme, no dropouts from the programme and a higher weekly participation rate,” said Chantal Dumoulin, associate professor in the physiotherapy programme at Université de Montréal.

According to the researchers, fun is a recipe for success.

“Compliance with the programme is a key success factor. The more you practice, the more you strengthen your pelvic floor muscles,” said Eling D de Bruin, researcher at the department of health sciences and technology at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.

The challenge was to motivate women to show up each week. The dance component was the part that the women found most fun and did not want to miss. They laughed a lot as they danced, said the study published in the journal Neurourology and Urodynamics.

Dancing gives women confidence, as they have to move their legs quickly to keep up with the choreography in the video game while controlling their urine, added the study.

“They now know they can contract their pelvic floor muscles when they perform any daily activity to prevent urine leakage. These exercises are therefore more functional,” said Dumoulin.