Adolescents

 

Perhaps the most neglected of all health care consumers and are often caught up in between children’s and adult services. There are very specific needs within this group that often need careful consideration.

Perhaps one specific aspect is that as their body can sometimes appear to have matured on the outside, actual bone growth maturity, does not match this appearance.

In the female secondary bone growth finishes in early twenties and in males in the mid-twenties; there are obviously normal human variation that can make these earlier.

As bone growth progresses through our adolescent years, there is a the chance of injury to the growth plates, of all bony structure of the body.

The spinal bones are not exempt from the chance of this, in fact they are quite unique in that the growth plates are on the ends of the vertebral bodies, against the disc space.