[Urinary incontinence in the elderly: distinctive feature and management]. / Incontinence du sujet âgé: particularités et prise en charge.

Urinary incontinence is very common among the elderly and results in a series of personal and economic complications. This population is often very heterogeneous with the aetiologies or dependences which are not very obvious. It is thus important to carry out among these patients a total assessment which will make it possible to detect the affections or the dependence from which it suffers. The BGMST (Belgian Geriatric Minimum Screening Test) includes a series of non aggressive tests which will answer this need. The performance of urodynamic tests is not easily achieved in case of not very autonomous or intellectually little collaborating patients. The prescription of surgical treatments is not necessarily to reject (urge incontinence). With regard to drugs, a good knowledge of their metabolism, of their interferences with other treatments in progress, is important especially in the absence of literature taking into account this heterogeneous old population. The prescriptions must be regularly re-examined in order to avoid weakening of these patients. In addition, in the elderly, aetiologies of incontinence are often multiple and consequently its daily management becomes particularly difficult.

[Thyroid gland and female sexual function. I. Relation outside of pregnancy]. / Glande thyroïde et fonction sexuelle féminine. I. Relations en dehors de la grossesse.

After having reviewed briefly the main characteristics of adult thyroid function, as well as the ways in which this is controlled (the first part), the authors reviewed present day methods of investigating thyroid gland function (the second part). In the third part of the work hormonal interrelationships between the thyroid and the ovary are discussed as well as the influence of gonadal hormones on thyroid function and the influence of the latter on ovarian function and on hypothalamic-pituitary interactions. The effects of thyroid diseases on reproductive function are studied in the last part of the work.