Treating teens: Young bodies, adult risks

Today's adolescents are plagued by a loss of innocence and a high-risk world. But physicians can ease teens' growing pains by practicing prevention.

By Stephanie Stapleton, AMNews staff. Sept. 15, 2003.

It's one of adolescent medicine's basic truths: Teenage and preteen patients generally have healthy bodies. It's the world around them that puts them at risk.

This truth is even more striking in today's world. Kids seem to grow up faster and face more choices at earlier ages that could affect their lifelong health.

It's no longer just the risk of unintended pregnancies and STDs. There is also the fatal threat of HIV. Though young people always drank and smoked, access has trickled down to junior high school and involves an expanding range of options -- designer drugs, date-rape drugs, steroids and inhalants, just to name a few. Violence and depression are pervasive. And obesity among young people is increasing at epidemic rates. These concerns are in addition to traditional growing pains.

"I definitely think that times have changed in terms of the landscape of adolescence," said Robert Garofalo, MD, MPH, an adolescent medicine physician at Chicago's Children's Memorial Hospital. "It used to be that at-risk teens were considered a narrow group. Now it seems that almost all teens, whether in urban, suburban or even rural environments, face some degree of risk."

In many respects, the adolescent's physician -- often the family doctor -- can help prepare the patient for what awaits. The physician's task is to effectively shepherd these young patients from the realm of pediatrics to more adult doctor-patient relationships in which the teens begin to take responsibility for their own health. The emphasis is almost entirely on prevention. If done right, it is tough and time-consuming, but also worth it.