Open AccessSubjective Cognitive Symptoms During a Migraine Attack: A Prospective Study of a Clinic-Based Sample
Author(s) -
Raquel GilGouveia,
António Gouveia Oliveira,
Isabel Pavão Martins
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
pain physician
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.31
H-Index - 99
eISSN - 2150-1149
pISSN - 1533-3159
DOI - 10.36076/ppj/2016.19.e137
Subject(s) - migraine , medicine , checklist , cognition , population , psychiatry , nausea , photophobia , clinical psychology , pediatrics , physical therapy , anesthesia , psychology , surgery , environmental health , cognitive psychology
Background: A migraine attack aggregates a range of different symptoms, besides pain, thatcontribute to attack-related disability. Cognitive dysfunction is an unacknowledged part of themigraine attack.Objective: To provide a profile of the frequency and character of migraine attack-relatedcognitive symptoms occurring during the headache phase of the attack.Study Design: Cross-sectional survey.Setting: Clinical-based sample of episodic migraine patients.Methods: Sequential patients were screened about the occurrence of cognitive symptomsduring migraine attacks using an open-ended question followed by a self-fulfilled symptomchecklist.Results: Of 165 migraine patients (15 men, age average 37.3 ± 10.7 years), 89.7% describedcognitive symptoms during the headache phase of the migraine attack. On average 2.5 ± 1.6symptoms were reported per patient, uninfluenced by demographic or disease-related variables.The most common spontaneous symptoms related to executive functions, such as poor ability toconcentrate (37%), difficulty in reasoning (25%), and thinking (23%). The pattern of responseson the symptoms checklist corroborated with those reported spontaneously and quantitativescores of the checklist were higher in patients with spontaneous symptoms.Limitations: Open-ended questions tend to overestimate frequency; data accuracy may beinfluenced by the population chosen (clinical-based, some using prophylactic treatment).Conclusions: This study detailed the frequency and characteristics of migraine attackrelated subjective cognitive symptoms and found its frequency to be similar to reports of othermigraine defining symptoms (ex. nausea, photophobia) in recent clinical series. Patients’ reportswere consistent and dominated by complaints of attention difficulties, diminished cognitiveefficiency, and processing speed impairment.Key Words: Migraine, cognitive symptoms, executive dysfunction, disease impact