Narrative Medicine to integrate patients', caregivers' and clinicians' migraine experiences: the DRONE multicentre project.

Background: Although migraine is widespread and disabling, stigmatisation and poor awareness of the condition still represent barriers to effective care; furthermore, research on migraine individual and social impact must be enhanced to unveil neglected issues, such as caregiving burden. The project investigated the migraine illness experience through Narrative Medicine (NM) to understand daily life, needs and personal resources of migraneurs, their caregivers and clinicians, and to provide insights for clinical practice.

Methods: The project involved 13 Italian headache centres and targeted migraneurs, their caregivers and migraine specialists at these centres.

Headache and neuropsychic disorders in the puerperium: a case report with suspected deficiency of urea cycle enzymes.

An enzymatic abnormality of the urea cycle is a metabolic disorder occasionally seen in adults, but particularly in the puerperium. The main risk is acute hyperammoniemic encephalopathy, leading to psychosis, coma and even death if not diagnosed promptly and treated appropriately. Headache is frequent in the puerperium normally manifesting between 3 and 6 days after delivery.

Risk factors for a first epileptic seizure symptomatic of brain tumour or brain vascular malformation. A case control study.

Principles: The risk of seizures increases in patients with brain tumours (BT) and brain vascular malformations (BVM), but not all risk factors are known. We aimed to identify factors that increase the risk of a first seizure in patients with BT or BVM.

Methods: Multicentre case-control study; 102 cases with a first seizure as a presenting symptom of BT or BVM; 121 hospital controls with BT or BVM, but without seizures, matched by centre, gender and age.

Headache in the elderly: primary forms.

In elderly patients, the differential diagnosis of primary headache complicated by clinical characteristics may suggest symptomatic headache. In addition, the frequent presence of chronic comorbidity illness and excessive analgesic use may aggravate a pre-existing headache or give rise to new headache to complicate headache management in elderly patients. This study reviews epidemiologic data, clinical characteristics and treatment options for primary headaches in elderly people.

Headache, anxiety and depressive disorders: the HADAS study.

The objective of this paper was to assess prevalence and characteristics of anxiety and depression in migraine without aura and tension-type headache, either isolated or in combination. Although the association between headache and psychiatric disorders is undisputed, patients with migraine and/or tension-type headache have been frequently investigated in different settings and using different tests, which prevents meaningful comparisons. Psychiatric comorbidity was tested through structured interview and the MINI inventory in 158 adults with migraine without aura and in 216 persons with tension-type headache or migraine plus tension-type headache.

Risk factors for a first epileptic seizure after stroke: a case control study.

Introduction: The risk of seizures increases after stroke, but not all risk factors are known. We aimed to identify factors that increase the risk of a first seizure after a stroke.

Methods: Multicenter case-control study of 161 patients with a first seizure after stroke (105 provoked/acute and 56 unprovoked/remote symptomatic) matched to 279 hospital stroke controls by center, gender, age and timing of stroke.