People who experience a mild traumatic injury are more likely to suffer from more frequent and severe headaches than people who suffer a moderate or severe traumatic brain injury, according to new research from the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle.
Sylvia Lucas, MD, PhD, and her colleagues studied nearly 600 patients who had sustained a traumatic brain injury, most frequently the result of a car accident, at three, six and 12 months after their injuries. They hoped to determine if the severity of injury was linked to the development of headache, which is common after trauma to the brain.
Researchers found that headache increased following the injury, especially in the group of 220 patients with a mild traumatic brain injury; 63% reported a headache at three months, 69% at six months and 58% at 12 months. In comparison, among the 378 study participants with moderate and severe brain injuries, 37% reported headache at three months after the injury, 33% at six months and 34% at 12 months.
“These findings should caution us to not underestimate seemingly milder head injuries and to take all brain trauma very seriously,” Dr. Lucas said.
This study was presented in June at the American Headache Society annual meeting in Los Angeles.
Most of the participants were men with an average age of 44. In an earlier study examining traumatic brain injury in children, mild injuries were also linked to more headaches, particularly for girls and adolescents. That study was published in December in the journal Pediatrics.
According to Dr. Arthur Elkind, the president of the National Headache Foundation, Dr. Lucas’ findings build on earlier research dating to the 1940s and 50s. One study, with World War II veterans, became critical to their appropriate diagnosis and treatment after minor head injuries. Additionally, Arnold Friedman, MD, led a study on the increased frequency of headache after traumatic brain injury. He went on to become the president of the National Migraine Foundation, now NHF.
