Excluding the incontinence of infants and young children before they have learned to control the bladder, the occurrence of urinary incontinence can occur at any time of life but increases with age, especially over the age of 60 years. The older we are, the greater the chance of us becoming incontinent and, as people live longer
and longer, so the number of sufferers from incontinence increases.

A recent MORI poll among men and women over the age of 30 years, published in the British Medical Journal, shows that almost 7% of men and 14% of women have been incontinent of urine at some time. Based on these figures about three million people in Britain suffer urinary incontinence. The actual number may be much higher than this because many people are reluctant to admit to the problem. We do not know for certain how many adults suffer from faecal incontinence but it is far less frequent than urinary incontinence.