Avicenna’s Points in Improving Female Urinary Incontinence with Lifestyle Options

Abstract

Urinary Incontinence (UI) is a significant reason for the decline in women's quality of life. The unexpected occurrence of UI and its high costs around the world are evident. Numerous methods are used for the management of UI; however, there is no worldwide agreement on any of these methods. Traditional medicines are a source of human medical experiences and this study is a review on the books of the most famous Persian medicine (PM) physician, Avicenna, to find about his approach to UI. Keywords such as: "female urinary incontinence", "lifestyle", and “nutrition” were selected. As a library research, Avicenna’s (980- 1037 AD) "the Canon of Medicine" (Al-Qanun Fi al-Tibb), was reviewed and coded. Some other PM famous books like "the Great Continens" (Al-Hawi fi Al-Tibb) of Rhazes (865- 925 AD) and "The Comprehensive Book on Medicine" (Al-Shamil fi Al-Sana'a Al-Tibbiya) of Ibn al-Nafis al-Qarshi (1213- 1288 AD) were used as a help to interpret the codes just in case it was required. Modern literature was searched with the same keywords at electronic databases such as Google Scholar, PubMed, and Magiran. Finally, the results were compared. Recent studies care on conservative and lifestyle management in the treatment of UI. In PM, principles of lifestyle management (Setteh-e-zarurieh) is one of the main characteristics of prevention and treatment with six essential principles including weather, eating and drinking, sleep and wakefulness, movement and rest, evacuation and retention, and psychological and mental reactions. In healthy people, these six axes are designed by temperament and personal characteristics. In this manuscript, we discussed five mentioned subtypes. These managements are appropriate for designing various pieces of clinical trials to survey their effects on female UI.