Headache

Abstract

Headache is an almost universal experience. Few individuals claim never to have suffered from headache; conversely, more than 40% of North American adults have experienced severe headache¹ and up to 10% of this population report headache as a severe, recurrent, and periodically disabling symptom.² Headaches are most prevalent among young adults. Nearly 60% of men and 76% of women aged 12 to 29 years report headache within any 4-week period.³ Although most headaches are not brought to medical attention, the condition still leads more than 40 million Americans to consult physicians annually⁴ and is the seventh leading presenting complaint in ambulatory care settings.³ Family practice studies consistently find headache to be one of the most frequently presented problems.⁵ The costs of headache, including expenditure on treatments and investigations and the disruption of personal and family life style, are enormous. Many of these costs are hidden. Headache is the single largest cause of lost work days in the United States—some 155 million work days annually.⁶