Young adulthood is one of the most exciting times in life. It is full of new experiences, challenges, freedoms, and responsibilities. Young adults living with a chronic medical condition have the added responsibility of navigating care transitions. These transitions are important to ensure the continuation of treatment plans from pediatric care to ongoing disease management into adulthood. Pediatric to adult care transitions are especially fraught for sickle cell disease (SCD) patients for many reasons from access to specialist providers to perceptions of SCD patients. Our ongoing discussions with SCD patients and providers continue to highlight this long standing, and critically important, need to not let young adult SCD patients fall through the cracks as they transition from pediatric to adult care. In this blog we share some of the challenges young adult SCD patients face from both the healthcare system and the chronic, progressive nature of the disease.
