I'm not elderly yet but this sounds like a useful stroke rehab item. One of my falls in the hospital was the first night in a regular room. I woke up around 2am needing to go to the bathroom, thinking I was at my parents house I knew the bathroom was just down the hall. I think I managed 1 step and collapsed on the floor. That earned me the dreaded yellow wrist band, high risk of falls, and the catheter.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/05/01/scientists-have-pinpointed-nighttime-urination-protein-in-elderly/
Scientists have pinpointed a protein that helps explain why the
elderly frequently have to get up in the night to urinate, a problem
that can badly interfere with sleep.
Deficient levels of protein called connexin43 trick the bladder into
believing that it is full, which sends a “must urinate” warning to the
brain, they report on Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications.
Connexin43 is part of a cascade of proteins in the so-called
circadian clock — the complex mechanism by which body processes crank up
during daylight and slow down at night.
During
sound sleep, a healthy person produces a smaller volume of urine from
the kidneys than during daytime. At the same time, more urine is stored
during sleep than during the active, daylight phase.
But when there are lower levels of connexin43, the smooth muscles of
the bladder become oversensitised to nerve signals that give a feeling
of fullness, the study says.
Researchers led by Osamu Ogawa of Kyoto University made the discovery
among lab mice that had been genetically modified to lack the gene that
makes connexin43.
The team developed an automated system, using a roll of filter paper
that turned purple when exposed to even tiny amounts of fluid, to count
how often the caged rodents urinated at night.
The chronic need to urinate at night, a condition called nocturnal enuresis, also causes bedwetting by young children.
The researchers say there are likely to be other circadian pathways that are involved in the problem.
