[Micturition disorders in women others than incontinence]

Micturitional disorders in the adult female occur more frequently than incontinence and are psychosocially more invalidating. Although they were long considered psychogenic, such disorders can now be more clearly divided into urgency-pollakiuria and micturitional difficulties. Although these symptoms can reflect severe disease of variable cause and duration, they can also be due to ineluctable physiologic changes in the female, subjected throughout life to the influence of hormones and to disfavourable anatomic conditions. These disorders are also sometimes the tribute of bladder "corticalisation" and of the highly reflexogenic character of the urethra. This article proposes a simple diagnostic approach and a diagram for decision making, based on clinical data and on urodynamic (cystoscopic and radiologic) findings. Various disorders can be associated; the treating physician, taking into account the patient's psychological status and behavioural disorders, must aid such support-seeking patients by careful listening, reinsurance and using simple methods of deconditioning and rehabilitation.