Handbook of Headache

Headache Disorders and Their Impact

Headache disorders are among the most common disorders of the nervous system. They are pandemic and, in many cases, they are recurrent and can accompany the patient for the whole life. These disorders impose a substantial burden on headache sufferers, on their families and on society: the individual impact is measured by the frequency and severity of attacks, while the societal burden is measured in terms of loss of activity at work and school as well as of costs for the health system. As a matter of facts, headaches are ranked in the top ten, and maybe the top five, causes of disability worldwide: they are therefore extraordinarily common.

Population-based studies have mostly focused on migraine, which, even if it is the most frequently studied headache disorder, is not the most common. Other types of headache, such as the more prevalent TTH and sub-types of the more disabling chronic daily headache, have so far received less attention and need to be better investigated.

This book will provide a useful tool to a wide medical population, who is required specific skills to diagnose and manage these frequent and often disabling disorders. Furthermore, it could also represent a compendium for medical students who are usually introduced to this topic through multidisciplinary university programmes.