ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the epidemiology and natural history of asthma related to adolescents, discusses appropriate clinical management and examines how the developmental features of adolescence affect self-management and the treatment of asthma. It focuses on the early and middle adolescent age groups because their development is distinctly different from younger children and from older adolescents, whose behavior more closely resembles adults. The adolescent patient should be directly involved in the formulation of the asthma treatment plan in establishing goals for therapy, and the plan should be realistic and achievable. Adolescent patients often describe symptoms of chest tightness with colds, chest congestion, and bronchitis. For some adolescents, their history, clinical findings, response to therapy, and ancillary test results are inconsistent with a diagnosis of asthma. Gender differences have been observed in two groups of urban, early adolescents, with males more likely to engage in asthma prevention.
