If about 12% of young adults, with a large predominance of women, are affected by migraine, children are also affected: about 5% of them suffer and the incidence of the disease increases after puberty, explains the National Institute of Health (Inserm). Very painful, migraine episodes often lead to medication which ends up causing addiction and migraines resistant to any treatment. For this reason, medical research is particularly interested in non-drug therapies.
In a study published on December 25 on the website of Journal of the American Medical Association, scientists at the Migraine Center at Cincinnati Hospital in the United States subjected 135 chronic migraine sufferers, aged 10 to 17, to the same drug treatment. While some took part in migraine education sessions, others participated in cognitive behavioral therapy sessions. According to the results of the study, children who received therapy sessions showed better results.
Difficult follow-up and not reimbursed
The daily headache episodes per less fell by 11.5 in the whole group compared to 6.8 for those who received only simple migraine education. “Behavioral therapy is of real interest against chronic headaches because it is scientifically shown that the apprehension of the crisis, which makes one focus on the pain, amplifies the intensity,” explains the Figaro Doctor Luigi Titomanlio, pediatrician and neurologist at the Robert-Debré hospital in Paris. “Without forgetting that it prevents the abuse of analgesic drugs.”
Only downside, reminds Le Figaro, this type of therapy is not reimbursed. The first sessions generally begin in the hospital, where they are not the responsibility of the family, and the follow-up continues outside the establishment. “But few specialists in child migraine exist in the city and waiting times in hospitals or in migraine centers can be very long,” the newspaper concludes.