What Is atopic dermatitis?
Atopic dermatitis, or eczema, is a chronic condition that can occur at any age, and usually appears as an itchy rash. In this video, Doris Day, MD, explains what atopic dermatitis is and how it is diagnosed by dermatologists.
Transcript
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Atopic dermatitis is also often referred to as eczema. It's a chronic condition that can occur at any age
and it is immune related. We can't cure it, but we can certainly help control it. What you see on the skin is a rash that is red
and it's also very itchy, and I think of it as an itch that rashes. DORIS DAY (VOICEOVER): So oftentimes, you
feel an intractable itch. One that you can't help with this but scratching, and then wherever you scratch, you
end up with a rash that's very red, and it can be inflamed, and what we call eczematous.
When people see the rash, they may be at first confused about what it is. They may think that it's an infection or another condition
called psoriasis, but to a dermatologist, the conditions do look different. DORIS DAY (VOICEOVER): Eczema or atopic dermatitis,
we think of it as being more juicy, more red, more inflamed, whereas psoriasis tends to be drier and have more scale.
So there are differences in how these rashes occur, and also there are many differences in what can trigger them, and where they occur in the body.
Psoriasis is more on the elbows and knees in classical psoriasis. Eczema can occur in the folds, it
can occur in other parts of the body in a more random distribution, depending on what your trigger is
eczema
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