Patients with family history of migraines could be more susceptible to concussions

PHILADELPHIA — Individuals with a family history of migraines may be more susceptible to concussions, and the inverse is also true, a presenter said during a sports neurology session at the American Academy of Neurology Annual Meeting, here.

“It is interesting, what they found incidentally. Personal or family history of migraine was observed in more than 80% of those symptomatic mild traumatic brain injury patients. To me, that begs the question, is migraine a risk factor of concussion? This has actually been talked about previously. Gordon in 2006 found an association between migraine and concussion in a large population study,” Tad D. Seifert, MD, said.

Seifert said migraines are the most common symptoms in pediatric patients who have had a concussion. More than 38% of pediatric patients who experience a concussion will show migraines as a symptom, he said.

Seifert, who is director of the Sports Concussion Program at Norton Healthcare, in Louisville, Ky., said 80% of pediatric patients who have a personal or family history of migraines will receive a concussion sometime in their life. The reverse is also true, he said, where 80% of pediatric patients with a personal or family history of concussions will experience chronic migraines.

The odds ratio of sustaining a concussion when playing hockey is similar to the odds ratio of migraineurs receiving a concussion, Seifert said.

“Just to get a frame of reference, the relative risk of getting a concussion in ice hockey is 2.5, and in migraineurs the relative risk of getting a concussion is not much lower, just 2.36,” he said. – by Robert Linnehan

Reference:

Seifert TD. Session #C82. Presented at: American Academy of Neurology Annual Meeting; April 26-May 3, 2014; Philadelphia.

Disclosure: Seifert has no relevant financial disclosures.