Helmut Madersbacher was born and raised in Innsbruck, Austria. He received his medical degree from the University of Innsbruck. He obtained the Austrian specialist degree in Urology in 1969, completed his PhD in 1975 and was appointed Associate Professor of Urology at the Innsbruck University Hospital in the same year. His interest already at that time was lower urinary tract dysfunction. In 1969 he visited the Institute of Urology in London and the Spinal Cord Injury Centre in Stoke Mandeville, in 1970 the Karolinska Hospital in Stockholm, in 1973 he was working with Prof. Brantley Scott at the Baylor College in Houston, USA. His main interest became neuro-urology. Between 1973 and 1993 he was consultant urologist in a nearby Spinal Cord Injury Centre, he set up a neuro-urology service there and started the neuro-urological care of children with myelomeningocele at the University Hospital of Innsbruck. In 1995 he became head of a newly founded Neuro-Urology Unit at the Innsbruck University Hospital. He retired from this position only recently due to Austrian state regulations; but he still works in a private practice in a private hospital in Innsbruck as urologist.
He is a founding member of the working group on Lower Urinary Tract Dysfunction and Female Urology of the German Urological Association, in 1996/97 he became Council Member of the International Medical Society of Paraplegia. He founded the Austrian Continence Society in 1989, was President of the Austrian Urological Society 1993/95 and became a Board Member of the International Consultation of Incontinence, in 1998 and 2001 as Chairman, in 2004 as Vice-Chairman of the committee on the conservative management of neurogenic urinary incontinence. He was President of the European Board of Urology between 2000/2002 and Board Member of the European Urologic Association as chairman of the European Urology – Accredited Continuous Medical Education (EU-ACME) Office/Program, which he initiated in 2004. He is member of the International Continence Society (ICS), was trustee from 2005 to 2011 and chairman of its Neuro-Urology Promotion Committee from 2013-2014.
He is honorary member and member of several international and national scientific societies and published more than 300 papers in scientific journals including several contributions to textbooks and handbooks, mainly dealing with lower urinary tract dysfunction and neuro-urology.