Primary headaches during lifespan

Abstract

Primary headaches are one of the most prevalent neurological disorders and can occur during a wide range of lifespan. Primary headaches, especially migraine, are cyclic disorders with a complex sequence of symptoms within every headache attack. There is no systematic review of whether these symptoms changes during lifespan. Indeed, the clinical presentation of migraine shows an age-dependent change with a significantly shorter duration of the attacks and occurrence of different paroxysmal symptoms, such as vomiting, abdominal pain or vertigo, in childhood and, in contrast, largely an absence of autonomic signs and a more often bilateral headache in the elderly. The age-dependent differences in the clinical presentation are less distinct in cluster headache and, especially, in tension-type headache. The differences in the clinical presentation are in agreement with the idea that the connectivity of hypothalamic areas with different brainstem areas, especially the central parasympathetic areas, is important for the clinical manifestation of migraine, as well as, the change during lifespan.

Alleviation of migraine symptoms by application of repetitive peripheral magnetic stimulation to myofascial trigger points of neck and shoulder muscles – A randomized trial

“…However, females usually outnumber male patients in migraine trials, including studies of the other neuromodulatory approaches [61][62][63] . On the one hand, this fact corresponds to the overall higher prevalence of migraine in women in epidemiological studies 4,64,65 . On the other hand, this ratio tends to be even more pronounced in treatment trials -an observation not extensively studied so far.…”

Chronic Facial Pain: Trigeminal Neuralgia, Persistent Idiopathic Facial Pain, and Myofascial Pain Syndrome—An Evidence-Based Narrative Review and Etiological Hypothesis

“…The male:female ratio was 4:3, but the ratio seems to be changing, with more women being diagnosed than men [ 8 ]. The lifetime prevalence in three European countries (Sweden, Germany, Italy) ranged from 0.15% to 0.28% [ 11 ]. Cluster headache presents with sudden onset of unilateral head pain, usually involving the eye and hemicranium, accompanied by parasympathetic autonomic manifestations such as tearing, nasal congestion, forehead sweating, miosis and ptosis.…”

Impact of Individual Headache Types on the Work and Work Efficiency of Headache Sufferers

“…Chronic migraines with low prevalence produce an extremely high disability [27]. The peak of prevalence of the most frequent primary headaches is in the very period that encompasses occupationally and reproductively active years [28][29][30][31][32]. In a Dutch study with 1781 employees who received a questionnaire, of the 1082 who responded (60.8%), the prevalence of headaches was 53.3%, with 39.8% of participants having at least one type of headache [7].…”

“…Numerous studies demonstrated that headaches adversely affect various aspects of the sufferer's life [25][26][27][28][29][30]. Trying to understand how a headache influenced work efficiency in our subjects, we asked them how a headache affects their work by offering several answers and allowing them to specify some other effects of their headaches.…”