TCS. was formed less than one year ago. There are already about 150 members in the society - beyond our expectations. Because in oriental culture women are always shy to talk about such personal problems, we thought that it would be hard to spread our message and make people stand up and face the problem. We produced lots of pamphlets about the Society with information about incontinence. Then we published some articles about treating incontinence without medicines and operations. This helped people with the problem know they were not alone - TCS was right there to help them. That was really helpful. We have run four Kegel (pelvic floor) exercise classes already and some people told us that their symptoms have decreased and that they are recommending their friends, parents, relations and even work colleagues to join in our activities. That really encouraged us. We would like to bring together the people who have been in our classes already to give them further training - doing exercises and playing games, like rope skipping, blowing balloon, jumping across bamboo poles etc.
On the other hand we would like to train the caregivers - nurses and attendants. - especially attendants in residential care homes so that elderly patients with severe symptoms are well cared for. Our further plans go beyond just helping people with incontinence. We are recruiting an advisory committee to provide answers to questions sent in to our newsletter and we hope to make a program on TV to help people and teach them how to take care of family members with incontinence. Facing the stress of incontinence alone is hopeless and lonely: people really need help and that is the reason why TCS exists.
Yen-Ying Yang