5 Headache Headlines from 2014

These review articles published in 2014 cover a variety of headache issues, and all are free courtesy of PubMed. Take a look.

• Medication-overuse headache. Withdrawal of the overused medication is recognized as the treatment of choice, but the strategy for achieving withdrawal is based on expert opinion rather than scientific evidence. This narrative review investigates various aspects of epidemiology, diagnosis, risk factors, and pathogenesis as well as management.

• Tackling chronic migraine. In the last decade, several diagnostic criteria and definitions have been proposed. Modifiable risk factors include migraine progression, medication and caffeine overuse, obesity, stressful life events, and snoring. Patients have a significantly higher frequency of some comorbid conditions, including chronic pain, psychiatric disorders, respiratory illness, and some vascular risk factors.

• Obesity and headache. The authors review the epidemiology of obesity and common primary and secondary headache disorders individually, the general population data evaluating the association between obesity and headache in general and then obesity and migraine and tension-type headache disorders, and the data on the association between obesity and a common secondary headache disorder that is associated with obesity.

• Migraine headache in children. The authors conducted a systematic review to answer the clinical question, What are the effects of treatments for acute attacks and of prophylaxis for migraine headache in children?

• Causes of sudden and severe headache (Thunderclap Headache). The most important cause is aneurysmal subarachnoid haemorrhage. The authors sought to create a definitive list of other causes using a systematic review.