Kids and Teens

Migraines and tension headaches are among the most common health complaints among children and adolescents. They suffer not only from the severe pain, but also from the associated limitations. This is because headaches have a negative impact on the quality of life as well as the social and physical activity of children and adolescents.

In addition, headaches are often associated with high school absenteeism, poorer academic performance and increased school dropouts. It is also linked to other health problems such as sleep disorders or mental illnesses, including anxiety disorders and depression.

Migraines affect around 11% of 8 to 18-year-olds worldwide, with 8% suffering from migraines without aura and 3% from migraines with aura . The frequency increases with age: while around 5% of children between the ages of 5 and 10 are affected, the figure for teenagers is 15%. Up to the age of 10, boys and girls are affected about equally, but from puberty onwards, migraines occur twice as often in girls as in boys (ratio about 2:1).

Around a third of adolescents who were affected by migraine as children experience remission during the teenage years. This means that the symptoms are temporarily or permanently alleviated. However, the earlier and more intense the migraine occurs in childhood, the less likely it is to remission in adolescence.

Data on chronic migraine (more than 15 migraine days per month) in children and adolescents is limited, but the estimated prevalence is around 1-2%.

Tension headaches affect around 17% of 8-18 year olds worldwide, with around 1% suffering from chronic daily headaches. In Europe, about half of all primary school children have occasional headaches, and 6% of them experience them once a week or more.

As chronic headaches can begin in childhood and adolescence, early prevention strategies are essential.

Every treatment begins with a detailed discussion with the children/adolescents and their parents in order to carefully record the individual complaints, fears and concerns, as well as a comprehensive neurological examination. The subsequent therapy is based on the biopsychosocial model and is carried out in consultation with parents/carers and, if necessary, extended support staff (school) and includes the following measures:

  1. Keeping a headache diary: Children´s headache diary or migraine app: Migraine-App
  2. Identification of individual physical and psychological trigger factors
  3. Basic measures to reduce headaches (opportunities to withdraw, stress reduction, shielding from stimuli, changing school stress factors if necessary, regular sleeping and eating habits, sufficient fluid intake, regular physical activity, etc.)
  4. Psychological interventions to modify stress, improve body and self-perception, strengthen autonomy and develop coping strategies
  5. Physiotherapy, craniosacral therapy, progressive muscle relaxation, biofeedback
  6. Prophylactic nutritional supplements
  7. Optimization of acute medication