 Introduction
Approximately 8.6 million children in the U.S. aged 10 to 17 have a disability.
Of these, 16 percent, or 1.4 million, experience limitations in their activities and will
probably have difficulty making the transition to adult health care.
Several reasons for this difficulty are consistently identified:
- difficulty finding an adult health care provider who has been trained in
pediatric conditions or who is willing to assume primary responsibility
- inadequate resources to deliver appropriate care within systems of adult health
care
- lack of medical history available for the adult caregiver
- families unwilling to let go of primary health care responsibility
- young people finding their new role as adult health care consumer difficult
- family practitioner finding it difficult to begin viewing the client as a young
adult
When the health care delivery system acknowledges and endorses age-appropriate
independence and social maturation, it encourages adolescents to come to terms with their
conditions. This support helps them take responsibility for themselves and their care,
rather than remain in more dependent relationships. Ideally, a medical transition will
catalyze other adolescent transitions and support overall developmental progress.
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