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The Medical History: The Key to Correct Headache Diagnosis

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Handbook of Headache

Abstract

Effective management of headache depends on correct diagnosis. The presence of warning symptoms should necessitate further investigation to rule out an underlying cause. Once pathology has been excluded, targeted questions and pattern recognition of typical presentations of headache enable more confident diagnosis. With primary headaches being more common in practice than secondary headaches, correct diagnosis is dependent on a good history. A good history is also important to prevent misdiagnosis when there are coexisting headache types.

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Correspondence to E. Anne MacGregor .

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© 2011 Lifting The Burden

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MacGregor, E.A., Ravishankar, K., Dodick, D. (2011). The Medical History: The Key to Correct Headache Diagnosis. In: Martelletti, P., Steiner, T.J. (eds) Handbook of Headache. Springer, Milano. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-88-470-1700-9_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-88-470-1700-9_12

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Milano

  • Print ISBN: 978-88-470-1699-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-88-470-1700-9

  • eBook Packages: MedicineReference Module Medicine

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