A clinical study on headache in the elderly

ABSTRACT

It has been known that the prevalence and the etiology of headache in the elderly are different from these in the general population. Nevertheless studies of headache in the elderly have been rare. Under these backgrounds, prospective study was performed to find the clinical characteristics of headache in the Korean elderly. The subjects consisted of 237 patients (malefemal = l.01.7). A detailed and relevant history was gathered by headache history force, and specific headache diagnosis was based on diagnostic criteria of the International Headache Society (1988). This study revealed that episodic/chronic tension-type headache (43%) was the meet common diagnosis, followed by headache not classifiable (8%), headache from substance withdrawal (6%), occipital neuralgia (5%), idiopathic stabbing headache (4%), and migraine(40%). Relatively because many patients with tension type headache had oromandibular dysfunctions, somewhat high proportion of the patients reported unilateral predominance in the location of pain. The proportion of symptomatic headache that start in the elderly were higher than that of idiopathic headache. When comparing with the general population, the importance of migraine and cluster headache declined, while the important of symptomatic headaches increased. Idiopathic headache was more common in woman than in men, but symptomatic headache had no definite sex difference. In conclusion, the etiologies and types of headache in the elderly are more complex and diverse, so that thorough diagnostic workups are needed.