NASHVILLE, Tenn. (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- The number of American kids with chronic diseases has quadrupled in the past 25 years. The daily drugs and treatments that help manage conditions like diabetes, asthma and cystic fibrosis can be overwhelming for a family. Now, a new program uses technology to teach kids how to handle their illness on their own.

Brothers Sean and Jeffrey McDougal spend their free time like most 8- and 10-year-old boys. The only difference -- every morning they have to go through a lung treatment before leaving the house. The brothers have cystic fibrosis, which causes mucus to build up in their bodies. Daily shaking treatments help them breathe easier, but keeping track of their medications is a full-time job. They both take more than five different kinds every day.

Mother Diane knows one day her sons are going to have to manage their care on their own. To get a head start, she enrolled them in a Vanderbilt University study. Doctors are testing if pagers can keep chronically sick kids on track. The boys personalized their pagers, then received several daily messages from their doctor reminding them to take their medicine and treatments.

"It felt like I was a grown-up," Jeffrey told Ivanhoe.

"If they by chance weren't up at 8 a.m., and the pager went off … They'd come running," Diane said.

Researchers say the month-long study involved 20 kids under 10 years of age. Early results show 85 percent used the pager system effectively.

"If we can get children to integrate the management of a chronic disease into their life at an early age, there's a very good possibility they're going to continue to do that as they get older," Kevin B. Johnson, M.D., M.S., associate professor of biomedical informatics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn., told Ivanhoe.

For some it's just a gadget, but the McDougals say the pagers are also training the boys to live and thrive with cystic fibrosis.