The Adolescent Today in Medicine

During the past 10 years, it has become clear that adolescence is a crucial time for the acquistion of health and behaviors that will favor good overall health. Indeed, the more we have adolescents who are able to make decisions to make decisions regarding their health, the more we will have an effective prevention policy for a number of diseases and illnesses (cardiovascular, psychiatric, cancer...). Therefore, the meeting between the health specialist and the young person will not make do just by approaching the group of issues for which the former is being consulted. The specialist's goal is to have the young person assume more responsibility for his or her health. Such a goal should take into account a number of factors specific to this age group. Accordingly, adolescents should not be thought of simply as miniature adults. If disease is defined in the adult as a loss of good health, it is defined as a problem in the development of good health during adolescence. At this age, the state of one's health is to be found where various adolescent issues overlap: autonomy, filiation, family relationships, depressive experiences, and behaviors that revolve around trying drugs. A health policy must be able to take those factors into account. It should be carried out in places such as schools, but also implicitly by practitioners who are brought in to meet with young people, whether it be in the venue of general medicine or pediatrics, or even in the emergency room when the first signs of failure in the development of one's health appear. Therefore, this book gives a voice to the various specialists who, based on their different practice issues, or at their places of work, take an approach to the interactions between adolescents and their health.