All issues > Volume 33(12); 1990

Original Article

J Korean Pediatr Soc. 1990;33(12):1680-1688. Published online December 31, 1990.

Causes of Chronic Headache in Children.

Han Koo Moon¹, Son Moon Shin¹, Yong Hoon Park¹

¹Department of Pediatrics, College of Medicine, Yeungnam University, Taegu, Korea

Received: February 1, 1990;  Accepted: August 17, 1990.

Abstract

Chonic headache is one of the most common symptoms in childhood diseases. Headache may occur as a symptom of many clinical disorders, including emotional disorders, head injuries, migraine, intracranial masses, intracranial inflammations or diseases of the eyes? ears, or nose, etc. But it may not always be possible to determine the cause in a given case despite elavorate diagnostic procedure because of non-obvious experession of headache, personal variability for pain and many environmen- tal factors influencing on headache. Hence, pediatricians have experienced difficulties in making diagnosis and management in chronic headache in children. One hundred and one patients, complain- ing of headache over than one month, were visited in the pediatric neurology clinic of Yeungnam University Hospital during two year period from July 1985 to June 1987. We conclude the followings: 1) There was no difference in sex distribution. 2) Most of patients were developed chronic headache after the age of six (94%). 3) Emotional factors were most likely to make headache in underlying diseases (65.3%). 4) Thirty nine patients had environmental factors to provoke and make worse the headache. Eight parental conflict and 7 poor school perfermance were identified. 5) One of 55(18.2%), 2 of 11(11.2%) and 6 of 53(11.3%) patients in studying skull x-ray, brain CT scan and EEG respectively showed abnormal findings.

Keywords :Chronic headache, Children