Northern Wyoming Mental Health Center Inc.
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Adolescence is a period of rapid growth and development. As such, proper attention to healthcare is essential. During this time, adolescents will need to learn to manage their own healthcare and should be developing a healthy lifestyle that will be maintained throughout their adult lives. Parents will want to ensure their youth continue to receive routine, annual physical examinations from their pediatricians or family doctors.
Maintaining regular, routine healthcare exams for teens is important for many reasons. For youth with chronic health conditions such as allergies, asthma, diabetes, or old sports injuries, these annual visits ensure that youth and their healthcare providers are regularly monitoring youths' symptoms and adapting treatment plans to meet the changing needs and requirements of their growing bodies. For healthy and well teens, these regular exams provide important education, vaccinations, and feedback that will enable them to remain on a healthy track. Healthcare providers offer education about developing healthy lifestyle habits and regular physical exams provide an ideal opportunity for youth to ask questions about their growing, changing bodies. Routine exams throughout the adolescent period also allow healthcare providers to detect and address the early warning signs of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, digestive problems, depression, eating disorders, and addictions. Dental and vision care, reproductive healthcare, and vaccinations are also important components of adolescent health.
Adolescent Vaccinations
Annual physicals are the perfect time to make sure that youth are caught up on their vaccinations. Most healthcare professionals recommend the following vaccinations, but be sure to check with each child's own healthcare team for their specific recommendations:
Dental & Vision Exams
It's also important that youth also receive routine dental and vision check-ups. Adolescents should go to the dentist every six months for routine cleaning and examinations. Youth may need to see a dental professional even more often if they need orthodontics such as braces or retainers, to make sure the orthodontics are re-aligning the teeth as intended.
Although many schools may routinely screen for certain types of vision problems, these screenings are not the same as a full and complete eye exam and are not intended to detect all types of vision or eye problems. Therefore, all youth should have regular eye exams. Youth who wear glasses or contact lens should also go to the eye doctor annually. Teens' eyes can continue to change during adolescence, so prescriptions for glasses and contacts may change over the years. Good vision is important because it enables youth to be successful at work and at school. Youth should be followed by an eye doctor especially if they use contact lenses, so that the doctor can make sure the youth is taking adequate care of their contacts and eyes. Contact lenses need to be cleaned daily as recommended by the contact manufacturer and eye doctor, and they should be replaced as recommended to prevent damage or infection to the eye.