Headaches can be debilitating and can stem from a wide variety of sources. In review of the literature, it became clear that the categorizations of headaches also vary by source or particular treating facility providing the information. This course will compile the categorizations and present the material in an organized manner for easier reference. Also covered are conservative treatment protocols found effective in treating headaches from a broad variety of sources: Craniopathy, Applied Kinesiology, SOT, soft tissue manual methods and modalities, spinal and TMJ manipulation and mobilization will be discussed and applied to a variety of headache pathologies.

 

Headache Facts and Statistics

 

The following is information provided by the World Health Organization (WHO):

• “Headache disorders are among the most common disorders of the nervous system.
• It has been estimated that almost half of the adult population have had a headache at least once within the last year.
• Headache disorders, which are characterized by recurrent headache, are associated with personal and societal burdens of pain, disability, damaged quality of life, and financial cost.
• Worldwide, a minority of people with headache disorders are diagnosed appropriately by a health-care provider.
• Headache has been underestimated, under-recognized and under-treated throughout the world.

 

Headache itself is a painful and disabling feature of a small number of primary headache disorders, namely migraine, tension-type headache, and cluster headache. Headache can also be caused by or occur secondarily to a long list of other conditions, the most common of which is medication-overuse headache.

 

Globally, it has been estimated that prevalence among adults of current headache disorder (symptomatic at least once within the last year) is about 50%. Half to three quarters of adults aged 18–65 years in the world have had headache in the last year and, among those individuals, 30% or more have reported migraine. Headache on 15 or more days every month affects 1.7–4% of the world’s adult population. Despite regional variations, headache disorders are a worldwide problem, affecting people of all ages, races, income levels and geographical areas.

 

Not only is headache painful, but it is also disabling. In the Global Burden of Disease Study, updated in 2013, migraine on its own was found to be the sixth highest cause worldwide of years lost due to disability (YLD). Headache disorders collectively were third highest.

 

Headache disorders impose a recognizable burden on sufferers including sometimes substantial personal suffering, impaired quality of life and financial cost. Repeated headache attacks, and often the constant fear of the next one, damage family life, social life and employment. The long-term effort of coping with a chronic headache disorder may also predispose the individual to other illnesses. For example, anxiety and depression are significantly more common in people with migraine than in healthy individuals.

 

Headache disorders are a public-health concern given the associated disability and financial costs to society. As headache disorders are most troublesome in the productive years (late teens to 50s), estimates of their financial cost to society – principally from lost working hours and reduced productivity – are massive. In the United Kingdom, for example, some 25 million working- or schooldays are lost every year because of migraine alone; this financial cost may be matched by TTH and MOH combined.

 

Headache is high among causes of consulting medical practitioners: one-third of all neurological consultations were for headache, in one survey. Yet, many of those troubled by headache do not receive effective care. For example, in the United States of America and the United Kingdom, only half of those identified with migraine had seen a doctor for headache-related reasons in the previous 12 months, and only two-thirds had been correctly diagnosed. Most were solely reliant on over-the-counter medications.

 

Worldwide, on average, only 4 hours of undergraduate medical education are dedicated to instruction on headache disorders. A large number of people with headache disorders are not diagnosed and treated: worldwide only 40% of those with migraine or TTH are professionally diagnosed, and only 10% of those with MOH.

 

Headache disorders are not perceived by the public as serious since they are mostly episodic, do not cause death, and are not contagious. The low consultation rates in developed countries may indicate that many affected people are unaware that effective treatments exist. Half of people with headache disorders are estimated to be self-treating.

 

Many governments, seeking to constrain health-care costs, do not acknowledge the substantial burden of headache on society. They might not recognize that the direct costs of treating headache are small in comparison with the huge indirect-cost savings that might be made (eg, by reducing lost working days) if resources were allocated to treat headache disorders appropriately.

 

WHO Medical Definition of Headache:

 

• Headache or head pain symptoms include throbbing, squeezing, constant, unrelenting, or intermittent. The location may be in one part of the face or skull or may be generalized involving the whole head.
• The head is one of the most common sites of pain in the body.
• Headache may arise spontaneously or may be associated with activity or exercise. It may have an acute onset or it may be chronic in nature with or without episodes of increasing severity.
• Headache is often associated with nausea and vomiting. This is especially true with migraine headaches.

• Secondary headaches are usually a symptom of an injury or an underlying illness. For example, sinus headaches are considered a secondary headache due to increased pressure or infection in the sinuses.
• Individuals should seek medical care for new-onset headaches or if headaches are associated with fever, stiff neck, weakness, change in sensation on one side of the body, change in vision, vomiting, or change in behavior that may be caused by the development of serious infections.

 

NOTE: This content is from the online course Soft Tissue Injuries 122: Headaches: Classifications, Examination, Pathological Conditions and Treatments of the Cranial Bones, Temporomandibular Joints and Cervical Spine Complex, available on ChiroCredit.com.  For more information on this course or to purchase it, please visit: https://chirocredit.com/course/Chiropractic_Doctor/Soft_Tissue_Injuries_122