The word eczema is used to describe all kinds of red, blistering, oozing, scaly, brownish, thickened, and itching skin conditions. These families may have allergies such as hay fever and asthma but also have skin eruptions called atopic dermatitis.
Atopic dermatitis is very common in all parts of the world.
It affects about ten percent of infants and three percent of the U.S. population overall. The disease can occur at any age but is most common in infants to young adults. The skin rash is very itchy and sometimes disfiguring. The condition usually improves in childhood or sometime before the age of 25. About sixty percent of patients have some degree of dermatitis and some suffer throughout life.