Making Their Mark: Young Adults Living With MS
Identifying MS Early
The Importance of Social Issues
Along with the physical effects, Krupp points out that young adults with MS can have unique social challenges, including struggling with identifying both their personal and professional paths. Young adults may fear the impact of MS on their education, career, dating and family planning.“They may have to grow up earlier than they would have liked to,” she says.Young adults also have to navigate factors related directly to their disease. “They have to learn how to fit a chronic therapy into their busy daily lives and changing environment,” Brenton says. “As they become independent from their parents, how do they get to an infusion center or their neurology appointment(s)? How do they remember to take a daily pill? How do they navigate things like covering healthcare costs and coming off of their parents’ insurance and getting onto their own insurance?”Yeh says transitioning from pediatric MS care to adult care also may be challenging.“It can be very scary going to an adult clinic with people who are decades older,” she says. “The range of disability that a young person might encounter in individuals in adult clinics is greater than in pediatric clinics and may lead to worries about the future in young adults.”Healthcare professionals feel these challenges as well. A study published in 2023 in the Canadian Journal of Neurological Sciences reports that pediatric clinicians may not know which patients should be referred for adult care and how to transition those patients. Nor do all clinicians feel confident about empowering young adults to self-manage their disease.Overall, Krupp says it’s important for healthcare professionals to point out to their patients that young people generally do very well with MS.“Instill a message of hope,” she says. “We’ve learned a lot and we’re learning more. There are many more resources for young adults with MS than there were before. There’s a lot of interest across the community at large in working together to make things better.”
