title: Causes and risk factors of urinary incontinence: Avicenna's point of view vs. contemporary findings.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To extract the causes and risk factors of urinary incontinence from an old medical text by Avicenna entitled "Canon of Medicine" and comparing it with contemporary studies.
  
  
  METHODS
  In this study, etiology and risk factors of urinary incontinence were extracted from Avicenna's "Canon of Medicine". Commentaries written on this book and other old reliable medical texts about bladder and its diseases were also studied. Then the achieved information was compared with contemporary findings of published articles.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Urinary incontinence results from bladder dysfunction in reservoir phase. Bladder's involuntary muscles and voluntary external sphincter are two main components which are involved in this process. Urinary incontinence can exist without obvious structural and neuronal etiologies. According to Avicenna, distemperment of muscular tissue of bladder and external sphincter is the cause for urinary incontinence in such cases. Distemperment is the result of bothering qualities in tissue, i.e.: "wet" and "cold". They are the two bothering qualities which are caused by extracorporeal and intracorporeal factors. Interestingly, the positive associations of some of these factors with urinary incontinence have been shown in recent researches.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  "Cold" and "wet" distemperment of bladder and external sphincter can be independent etiologies of urinary incontinence which should be investigated.&nbsp;
authors.affiliation: Research Institute for Islamic and Complementary Medicine, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. Nojavan.f@tak.iums.ac.ir.
authors.forename: Fatemeh
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Nojavan
authors.forename: Hossein
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Sharifi
authors.forename: Zinat
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Ghanbari
authors.forename: Mohammad
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kamalinejad
authors.forename: Roshanak
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Mokaberinejad
authors.forename: Maryam
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Emami
mesh_terms: D049673:History, 20th Century; D049674:History, 21st Century; D049691:History, Medieval; D006801:Humans; D008373:Manuscripts as Topic / Q000266:history*; D019071:Persia; D012307:Risk Factors; D014549:Urinary Incontinence / Q000209:etiology / Q000266:history*