Incontinence urinaire chez la femme: prise en charge en médecine de premier recours [Urinary incontinence in women: management in primary care]

Urinary incontinence in women is a largely under-evaluated problem that affects nearly one out of two adult women. Even thouh its physiopathology is complex and its etiologies are multiple (and often intricate), urodynamic investigations are not considered necessary before starting a conservative therapy, which can be initiated by the primary care physician. Conservative management is based upon lifestyle modifications, specialized physiotherapy, and in certain cases medication. In the case of insufficient response after three months, the patient should be recommended to a specialist who can evaluate the need for a surgical procedure.

Cycles de vie d'une femme et tabac [The health consequences of smoking for women at different stages of their life].

Women who smoke underestimate the risks of smoking on their health, especially the impact of the anti-estrogenic and toxic effects of tobacco at the different stages of their life. The risk of female infertility related to tobacco is now well-proven, as is the risk of arterial and venous thrombotic event when tobacco is associated with oral contraception. Many foetal and maternal pathologies are linked to maternal smoking. Regarding post-menopausal women, smoking is associated with an increased osteoporotic and cardio-vascular risk. Doctors are at the first line to advise women and propose them help and assistance in their quit smoking process in a way adapted to their situation.

Triade de la femme sportive [Female athlete triad]

The practitioner, as well as specialist such as gynecologist and endocrinologist, may face in their office women with eating disorders, abnormalities of menstrual cycles and low bone mass, which may be the first hints of the female athlete triad. In these situations, the practitioner may search other findings of these triad by looking at some particular physical findings and by using appropriate questionnaire. In some advanced forms of this triad specific abnormalities of eating disorders (anorexia and boulimia) may be present as well as amenorrhea and osteoporosis, which may disturb the well-being and cause health damages of women practising sport either as amateur or in a elite setting. An appropriate handling of such disorders has to be proposed to these women.

'Dusky Sally': La femme esclave entre histoire et fiction

Au travers d'une étude parallèle de deux femmes esclaves - l'une figure historique, l'autre personnage de fiction - et de la façon dont elles ont été inscrites dans, et surtout hors du récit historique et littéraire américain, cet essai vise d'une part à interroger les biais et les limitations de l'historiographie traditionnelle américaine dans sa représentation de l'esclave, et d'autre part à évaluer le rôle de la littérature dans la critique et la « re-vision » du discours historique. Le roman de Gloria Naylor Mama Day (1988) offre ainsi un détour intéressant pour mettre en lumière les processus discursifs, épistémologiques et idéologiques qui ont permis et perpétué l'absence de femmes comme Sally Hemings, esclave et maîtresse supposée de Thomas Jefferson, dans l'Histoire américaine.Through a parallel discussion of two slave women - the first a historical figure, the second a fiction character - and of the way they have been inscribed in, and indeed out of, the historical and fictional narrative of America's past, this essay aims both to interrogate the biases and limitations of traditional American historiography in its representation of slaves and to evaluate the role of literature in the critique and "re-vision" of historical discourse. Gloria Naylor's novel Mama Day (1988) thus provides an interesting detour to cast light on the discursive, epistemological and ideological processes that have permitted and perpetuated the absence from American History of women like Sally Hemings, Thomas Jefferson's slave and supposed mistress.