Descriptions Of Migraine Research Articles

Oliver Sacks and migraine.

Background Oliver Sacks (1933-2015) published a large number of books on a variety of neurological topics. Of these, numerous copies have been sold and they probably serve as the only or main source of information on neurological diseases for many persons without a medical background. His first book was on migraine and in his subsequent books many descriptions of migraine can be found, mainly those of auras. Methods We explored the descriptions of migraine in Sacks' work in order to evaluate the image of migraine offered to the readers. Conclusion Oliver Sacks gave wonderful descriptions of migraine auras, but hardly any of migraine headache. Furthermore, he described rare auras such as 'amusia' and olfactory auras. Overall, this makes his descriptions of migraine not very useful to serve as medical information for laypersons. Oliver Sacks, however, wrote great literature.

Description of migraine with persistent aura without infarction in a pediatric headache center

The objective of this abstract is to describe the characteristics, evaluation, treatment, and outcome of children diagnosed with migraine with persistent aura without infarction (PAI). PAI in children has rarely been described in the literature. The ICHD-II diagnostic criterion defines it as aura symptoms lasting for more than 1 week without radiographic evidence of infarction. Retrospective analysis of 7,300 pediatric tertiary headache center patients was completed to identify and characterize those PAI meeting the ICHD-II criteria.

A Curiosity in the History of Sciences: The Words “Megrim” and “Migraine”

Vertigo has been described by medical doctors since Antiquity, but the condition is not limited to human medicine. It is also interesting to note that vertigo-related disorders were long only mentioned in the descriptions of migraine: however, in the Corpus Hippocraticum, a pain with vertigo (odunê kai skotodiniê) was not considered as hemicrania; in Aretaeus medical text, scotoma was clearly another disease than heterocraniê; although there could be metastases between them (pain could be followed by vertigo, as Boerhaave translated from Greek to Latin); Caelius Aurelianus, Ibn Zuhr of Seville, Īsmā'īl Jurjānī considered vertigo as a separate entity from “migraine” as well. One had to wait until 1831 for “ophthalmic migraine” (Piorry) to take systematically this disorder into account (to more or less causally relate it to migraine), and 1988 for the International Headache Society to acknowledge vertigo as a symptom of aura in “basilar migraine,” which was given the better name of basilar-type migraine in 2004. From this point of view, veterinary medicine presents a particular interest because, for centuries, diseases mainly affecting horses — called in French “migraine,” “mal de tête” (headache), “douleur de tête” (head pain), or in English “megrim(s),” “head-ach,” “pain,” and for which it is not self-evident that they are in any way related with the conditions that bear these names in humans — have been connected with vestibular impairments. Whatever is the relationship between the human and animal pathologies and, although it is impossible to interpret animal signs (abnormal behavior) with human symptoms (complaints), some impressive descriptions, written by Anglo-Saxon authors for the most part, seem to have played a significant role in the history of migraine. The purpose is to examine how a word in its English veterinary medical sense could have influenced French medical descriptions.

NEW TACTICS FOR TROUNCING MIGRAINE

DESCRIPTIONS OF MIGRAINE'S debilitating symptoms occur early in recorded history, with an ancient Egyptian papyrus sarcastically recommending decapitation as the only viable treatment. Over time, gentler treatments for migraine sufferers, or migraineurs, emerged. Triptan drugs have helped thousands of migraineurs since their approval in the 1990s. Though hailed as a miracle, triptans have side effects and limitations. A session during the recent American Chemical Society national meeting in Boston highlighted alternatives beyond triptans for treating migraine. Triptans reduce the dilation of brain arteries that contributes to intense migraine pain. Because constricting action caused by the compounds may affect blood vessels outside the brain, however, triptans aren't recommended for use by anyone with cardiovascular disease. That limitation, plus a need for faster-acting drugs, is motivating the search for migraine therapies with different modes of action. The precise cause of migraines isn't clear, but t...

MIGRAINE IN PREGNANCY

Reference to people suffering bouts of severe headache with associated vomiting and visual aura may be found in texts that date back 5000 years but the first clear description of migraine as a distinct clinical entity was provided by Aretaeus of Cappadocia in the second century AD. Today, at least 80% of women experience headaches in adult life and in approximately a quarter of these cases the pain is recurrent and incapacitating. When each episode of headache lasts between 4 and 72 hours and is accompanied by nausea, vomiting, photophobia or phonophobia, the symptoms fulfil the International Headache Society's current definition of the syndrome called migraine, detailed in Table 1.

The history of migraine from Mesopotamian to Medieval times.

The first descriptions of migraine can be traced back nearly 4,000 years from the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia (Sumeria and Babylonia) through Egyptian, Greek and Roman epochs. Through Byzantine, Arabic and Medieval times there are only patchy references until the 17th century, when European physicians first gave full case reports.

Headaches preceded by visual aura among adolescents and young adults. A population-based survey.

Clinical descriptions of migraine preceded by visual aura often include a composite of striking and severe symptoms of several attacks in individual patients, but few studies have characterized the spectrum of such attacks. In a population-based telephone survey of 8920 Washington County, Maryland, residents 12 through 29 years old, the attack rate for visual aura headaches during the week prior to the standardized interview was 3.7% in male and 6.1% in female subjects. Among female subjects, the risk for visual aura headache with tension-type symptoms increased with age, whereas the risk for visual aura headache without tension symptoms decreased with increasing age. No clear age-related patterns were observed among male subjects for either type of aura headache. The severity of visual aura headache with and without tension symptoms increased with age among female subjects, but showed an inconsistent pattern among male subjects except for decreasing disability with increasing age. The median interval between the onset of aura symptoms and the onset of headache (aura interval) was 15 minutes in male subjects and 25 minutes in female subjects, with aura intervals longer than 60 minutes reported by 12% of male subjects and 20% of female subjects. In one of the first large population-based studies to characterize the spectrum of visual aura headache, differing age, gender, and subtype patterns were found.