BEST PRACTICE
Childhood headache
Correspondence to:
Dr R W Newton, Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital, Pendlebury, Manchester M27 4HA, UK; richard.newton797@ntlworld.com
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Few adults have never had a headache yet the condition in childhood, particularly when recurrent, commonly causes irrational fear of serious illness among parents and primary care physicians, leading to referral to paediatric services.
HOW COMMON IS IT?
Headache is common in humans. Population-based studies1 2 show an equal sex prevalence of about 2.5% (or slight male predominance) under 12 rising to 6.0–10.0% thereafter with a female preponderance. Although at times alarming, it rarely represents serious underlying disease (3 of 815 children in one study3) and we ought to emphasise this to the families involved.
WHAT CAUSES HEADACHE AND ASSOCIATED SYMPTOMS?
With its 100 000 million neurones, each with about 100 000 dendritic connections there is little wonder that brain malfunction may lead to a myriad of possible associated experiences. What follows is what we know from migraine research.4
Many young people with headache have a first degree relative with a similar problem. Migraine without aura (see below) is probably
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Pain (neurology)
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Headache (including migraine)
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