Pediatrics: Adolescent Medicine

Abstract

The teenager must accomplish a series of crucial developmental tasks during the few short years of adolescence. During these years, illness will often interfere with the attainment of the skills and attitudes necessary to becoming a healthy and productive adult. Either physiological or behavioral dysfunction may prove an obstacle to the achievement of academic and vocational goals, the realization of independence from parental support and control, the development of adult psychosexual capability, the derivation of a healthy self-identity and feelings of self-worth, and even the completion of somatic maturation.¹During the past two decades, we have reached a better understanding of both the nature and extent of those disease processes that are most likely to have impact on adolescents. <h3>Health Indices in Adolescents</h3> There are more than 40 million Americans between the ages of 10 and 19 years, accounting for approximately one fifth of our population. It is estimated