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Nearly 20% of patients who presented headache during the acute phase of COVID-19 develop a daily chronic headache, according to the journal
Cephalalgia
, the official publication of the International Headache Society, of the study carried out by members of the Study Group of Headaches of the Spanish Society of Neurology (SEN) in which the
evolution of more than 900 Spanish patients with COVID-19 who suffered from headache
as a symptom of this disease was analyzed.
Of all the patients included in the study, about
half had no previous history of headache,
and although the mean duration of the headache was 2 weeks, in approximately
one fifth of patients became persistent
and followed a chronic daily pattern: in 19% of patients the headache persisted at 3 months and in 16% the headache persisted at 9 months.
Furthermore, headache intensity during the acute phase of COVID-19 was associated with longer headache duration.
"We found that, in cases where the headache persists after 2 months, it is quite likely that it will remain present over time. And also that, when
the headache persists for a month, there is a 50% chance of odds that the headache will still be present 9 months later
. This shows the importance of early evaluation of patients with persistent headache after suffering from COVID-19,"
as explained by Dr. Jesús Porta Etessam, co-author of the study and Vice President of the SEN.
"From the SEN we are convinced that, if this symptom were addressed correctly in these patients from the beginning,
many of the problems of chronicity
of this disease would be avoided. In any case, to date, there are no specific therapies, so that most clinicians
treat post-COVID-19 headache based on similarity of symptoms to other primary headaches Considering the impact of headache on patients' quality of life,
controlled studies are urgently needed of possible treatments and their effectiveness,"
says Dr. Patricia Pozo Rosich, co-author of the study
.
Another of the conclusions of this study is that, more frequently, patients with
persistent headache at 9 months have a headache with migraine-like characteristics
.
In addition, patients with persistent headache after 9 months are mostly older people, more often women, who had less frequently had pneumonia during COVID-19, and whose headache is somewhat milder in intensity, throbbing, accompanied by photophobia and/or phonophobia and worsens with physical activity.
"Headache is a frequent symptom of COVID-19 and also a common symptom among people who have overcome the disease, but few studies have been carried out that allow us to know the evolution of this symptom in the long term. For that reason, We carried out this work, in which we have included more than 900 patients from six Spanish hospitals and we studied their evolution for nine months",
explains Dr. David García Azorín, also co-author of the study and Member of the Spanish Society of Neurology (SEN).
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