VIDEO: Subjective cognitive impairment common feature of migraine, severe headache
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AUSTIN, Texas — More than 80% of those dealing with migraine or severe headaches reported cognitive impairment, with the most common being concentration difficulty, according to a presenter at the American Headache Society annual meeting.
“Migraine has a number of cardinal diagnostic symptoms including aura, various combinations of nausea, sensitivity to light and sound,” Richard B. Lipton, MD, a professor of neurology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, said in this Healio video. “One of the neglected features of migraine is cognitive impairment.”
Lipton and colleagues sought to evaluate patient-reported cognitive impairment as a result of migraine in the Chronic Migraine Epidemiology and Outcomes — International (CaMEO-I) study.
The cross-sectional, web-based survey was conducted in 2021 in Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the U.K. and U.S. Participants were identified using American Migraine Study/American Migraine Prevalence and Prevention study diagnostic questionnaire as well as the six-question subjective Migraine Cognitive Impairment Questionnaire, in which incidence and frequency of subjective cognitive impairment during migraine or severe headache were reported.
Researchers found 81.1% of those with migraine or severe headache reported cognitive impairment, with the most common symptom being difficulty in concentration.
“By giving either preventive treatment or acute treatments, it’s a neglected burden of migraine that can be targeted for therapy,” Lipton noted.