Migraine and tension headache in children under 6 years of age

Abstract

A better clinical definition of the disorder would make it easier to identify very young affected children and consequently to plan more specific therapeutic interventions, taking into account environmental and psychological factors. A diagnosis of idiopathic headache becomes particularly significant: according to our cases, despite their being limited in number, migraine and tension headache can be considered also as indices of individual or family related problems requiring appropriate psychiatric or psychological intervention. This stresses the need for a multidisciplinary team of specialists that would include a psychologist/ psychiatrist or headache specialist with specific training in psychiatry.

Idiopathic Headache in Children Under Six Years of Age: A Follow‐Up Study

“…29 All the patients had been consecutively referred, because of the onset of headache symptomatology under 6 years of age, to our Departments of Child Neurology and Psychiatry.…”

Recurrent and chronic headaches in children below 6 years of age

“…Recently Balottin et al [21] have described 26 children under 6 years of age with primary headaches (10 cases of migraine and 16 cases of ETH). In this group several cases were included in probable migraine or probable tension headache, maybe because the old IHS criteria [5] were used.…”

Recurrent Neck Pain and Headaches in Preadolescents Associated with Mechanical Dysfunction of the Cervical Spine: A Cross-Sectional Observational Study With 131 Students

“…17,18 This is reflected in the wide range of prevalence rates quoted in studies: they are from as low as 6% to as high as 80%. 16,[19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28] Almost all of the information obtained from studies of neck pain and/or headache in children comes from questionnaires, but the validity of assessing pain retrospectively in children has been disputed. [29][30][31] Age appropriate daily pain diaries have been found to be most accurate in assessing the duration, intensity and frequency of pain in children.…”

“…15 Not surprisingly, headaches are commonly misdiagnosed in these children and statistics regarding prevalence rates of specific headaches are unreliable. 14,16 Furthermore, studies in children have not been uniform in their methods of headache classification nor in their inclusion criterion making comparison of prevalence rates difficult. 17,18 This is reflected in the wide range of prevalence rates quoted in studies: they are from as low as 6% to as high as 80%.…”