The Management of Constipation: Current Status and Future Prospects

Abstract

Chronic constipation, a common condition, can have remarkably negative effects on a patient's quality of life. Recent research has identified factors that may influence the prognosis of chronic constipation and suggests the need for adequate therapy. However, the major obstacles in this field were: (1) a small number of therapeutic options, (2) no clear diagnostic criteria, and (3) no effective method to collect information form the patients. These were due to the fact that bowel movement patterns vary widely among individuals, and also the functional constipation, including irritable bowel syndrome, is difficult to be distinguished from the chronic constipation. Recently, it has been demonstrated that the Rome IV diagnostic criteria of functional constipation and the Bristol stool form scale are useful for the objective evaluation and recording of stool. Based on these developments, and the increase of newly developed medicines the therapy for the constipation is significantly changing and therefore, if conventional therapy for chronic constipation is ineffective, switching of medicines is possible. Therefore, clinicians should update the information of these newly developed drugs available in clinics and diagnostic criteria. For this purpose, in this chapter, we have summarized the perspective on the current paradigm of treatment for chronic constipation focusing on recently introduced therapeutic drugs.

Constipation in the period of limited isolation during COVID-19 pandemic

“…A total of 36 questions were present in the survey. The questions were designed by the authors including questions on the demographic data of the group included, groups of occupation, accommodation during the isolation period, changes in the eating habits, physical activity status, sleep and stress conditions, presence of symptoms of constipation before (using Rome IV criteria) 13 and its duration, if present, changes in defecation habits, stool shapes (using Bristol scale) 10 , and drug use in the newly developed constipation. In contrast, chronically used drugs, prior GI surgery, and comorbidities of the individuals were questioned.…”

“…Constipation is associated with sedentary lifestyle, nutrition composed of low fibers, drugs, anxiety, depression, and somatization as well as changes in the lifestyle 5,6,8,9 . Also, quality of life of individuals is negatively associated with constipation 10 . Thus, since limiting people to home causes negative changes in eating habits, psychological conditions, and physical activity level, these negative effects might have negative impact on defecation habits as well.…”