Omer Abbas Ahmed
American Hospital Dubai, UAE
Title: Headaches (Cephalgia) in children- An Overview Lecture
Biography
Biography: Omer Abbas Ahmed
Abstract
Headache is one of the most common complaints in children and adolescents.
The incidence of chronic or recurrent headaches in children is about 40% by the age of 7 years and goes to 75% by 15 years of age. Sex ratios of children affected varies by age: between 3-7 yrs boys dominate, gets equal mid childhood (7-11 years)but thereafter we see more girls affected than boys.
Headaches in children almost always raise serious concerns in parents. We would always remember about 3,800 CNS tumours are diagnosed annually in US. There have been several reports of delayed presentations of childhood brain tumors. However, childhood headaches are rarely caused by serious underlying disorders. The evaluation of headaches in children varies widely depending on the presentation’s settings. In a historical cohort of 48,575 children aged 5-17 years who were seen by primary care providers for complaint of headache, 19 percent were diagnosed with primary headache at the time of presentation, 1.1 percent was diagnosed with secondary headache, and 79.7 percent received no formal diagnosis.
Unfortunately, culturally children’s headaches are taken rather lightly in many communities. Most children who present to paediatric emergency departments with acute headache have a viral illness or an upper respiratory infection as the cause of their headache, although more sinister conditions occasionally are diagnosed. The lecture is an overview of this common problematic symptom. It partly covers epidemiology, pathogenesis, pathophysiology, classification, triggers, clinical evaluation and management of headaches in children and adolescents. It is rather a summary to this comprehensive subject.
Five short interactive clinical cases of this problem are presented in the last ten minutes for audience’s discussion.