[Information of the children about the puberty: investigate beside of the hospitable staff]

Introduction: objective was to clarify the nature of the information which the children of the hospitable staff received from their relatives about the physical and psychological alterations of the puberty

Patient and methods: study was transverse and descriptive, with 100 agents of the hospitable staff, proceeding of a questionnaire to structured answers

Results: The agents informed theirchildren about physical alterations before their arisen in 56 per cent of cases, menstruations in 74 per cent of cases and ejaculation in 34 per cent of cases respectively in an average age of 10,6 years, 10,9 years and 13,9 years. The high level of the professional category was correlated with the information about the ejaculation, and with that about the puberty psychological effects. The female genital organ of the relative [parent] was correlated to information about the morphological and psychological alterations of the puberty

Conclusion: information about morphological alterations and signs of sexual maturity, were frequently delayed with regard to the beginning of the juvenile process. The psychological aspect was relatively neglected. What illustrates on one hand the importance of the taboo of the sexuality in our company [society] and on the other hand, the lack of sensitization of the hospitable staff on the importance of this information for the health of the children

[Clinical aspects of depressive disorders at the teenager retrospective study]

The mood disorders of the teenager are among the psychiatric disorders those who's diagnosis and treatment were the most appreciably modified during these last three decades The objective of our work was to study clinical characteristics and school and domestic echo of the teenager depressive disorder. We led a retrospective, descriptive study about 46 cases of teenagers affected by the mood disorder [OSMIV], and recruited over a period of 4 years [on 1998 in 2001], The age of the beginning of the disorder varied between 12 years and 17 years with a peak in the 13[th] and in the l6[th] years Depression was a dysthymic disorder in 39, 10%of cases a not specified depressive disorder in 21, 7%of cases a bipolar disorder in 13%of cases an adaptation disorder with depressive mood in 17, 4%of cases and a major depressive isolated disorder in 8, 7%of cases. A negative echo on the schooling was noted in 17, 4%of cases. Domestic relational dynamics was disrupted in 69, 6%of cases. Depressive disorder in the adolescence is characterized by the important frequency of dysthymic disorder and not specified depressive disorder these disorders are very diverse and should be better characterised a at the teenagers because of their therapeutic implications The individualization of minor depressions at the teenager is very interesting because of then important frequency and their specific treatement

[Novel mutations in LAMA2 gene responsible for a severe phenotype of congenital muscular dystrophy in two tunisian families]

Congenital muscular dystrophies are a group of common genetically determined disorders often transmitted with a recessive mode of inheritance. In recent years, several deficiencies of proteins from the muscle membrane, extra cellular matrix, sarcomere, muscle cytosol and the nucleus have been described to cause CMD. The occidental type of CMD [MDC1A] in which the primary defect is a deficiency in laminin alpha 2 chain [merosin] encoded by LAMA2 gene, accounts for 30-40% of cases. The clinical course of CMD with complete laminin alpha 2 chain deficiency may be variable but most often; severe forms characterized by hypotonia at birth, profound muscle weakness, marked delay in motor milestones are observed. Since the identification of the first LAMA2 gene mutations leading to merosin deficiency in 1995, several mutations have subsequently been reported in many exons of this gene without any "hotspot" region. In this work, we report two novel homozygous mutations c.8005delT and C.8244+1G>A in the LAMA2 gene in four Tunisian patients with a severe MDC1A phenotype belonging to two unrelated consanguineous families