← Chapter 11
Medical Terminology · Chapter 11

Won’t Hold or Won’t Empty

Every lower-tract complaint is ultimately one of two failures: the bladder will not hold, or the bladder will not empty. Sorting a patient into those buckets is the first thing a urology clinic does, and it points at entirely different causes and treatments. Sort twenty complaints, watch the bladder on the right change shape with your answer, then name which of the four incontinence patterns each patient has — including the one that leaks because it cannot empty.
The bladder right now · the picture behind the word
Diagram of the bladder and its outlet, redrawn to show either a bladder that cannot hold urine or a bladder that cannot empty it Balanced Won’t hold Won’t empty ! Different signal