Multimodal compared to pharmacologic treatments for chronic tension-type headache in adolescents

Management and behavior-modifying recommendation effects in childhood headache

BACKGROUND

Headaches are common in childhood. Recently, there has been an increasing trend toward pharmacological treatment.

METHODS

Secondary causes were excluded first in patients who attended our clinic with headache. Those without a secondary cause were evaluated as primary headache and classified into subgroups. Behavior-modifying recommendations (adequate and regular sleep, adequate and regular nutrition, adequate fluid intake, and restriction of screen exposure) were given to all patients. Patients were re-evaluated at 1, 3, and 6 months. Pharmacologic treatment was started at the end of the first month with follow-up at the third and sixth months for those who did not benefit from the behavior-modifying recommendations.

RESULTS

A total of 875 patients presented with headache complaints, of which 30.6% were evaluated as primary headache. Behavior-modifying recommendations were beneficial for 23.1% with migraine with aura; 20.3% with migraine without aura, and 36.8% with tension-type headache.

CONCLUSION

Secondary causes should be excluded first in patients who present to the pediatric neurology clinic with headache. Behavioral modifications to change the lifestyle of patients diagnosed with primary headache should be tried before giving pharmacologic treatment.

Pediatric Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine: A Scoping Review

CONTEXT

A common reproach precluding the use of osteopathic manipulative medicine (OMM) in pediatrics is a lack of evidence regarding its safety, feasibility, and effectiveness.

OBJECTIVE

We conducted a systematic, scoping review of pediatric osteopathic medicine to identify gaps in the literature and make recommendations for future research.

DATA SOURCES

We searched 10 databases using 6 key words and medical subject heading terms for any primary articles reporting OMM use in children published from database inception until initiation of the study.

STUDY SELECTION

Articles were selected if they reported primary data on OMM conducted in the United States on patient(s) 0 to 18 years old.

DATA EXTRACTION

Baseline study characteristics were collected from each article and the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluations system was used to critically appraise each study.

RESULTS

Database search yielded 315 unique articles with 30 studies fulfilling inclusion and exclusion criteria. Of these, 13 reported the data required to demonstrate statistically significant results, and no significant adverse events were reported. The majority of studies were graded as providing weak clinical evidence because of significant methodologic flaws and biases.

LIMITATIONS

The review was limited to US-based studies and reports. Minimal discrepancies between reviewers were resolved via an objective third reviewer.

CONCLUSIONS

There is little strong, scientific, evidence-based literature demonstrating the therapeutic benefit of OMM for pediatric care. No strong clinical recommendations can be made, but it can be medically tolerated given its low risk profile. High-quality, scientifically rigorous OMM research is required to evaluate safety, feasibility, and efficacy in pediatrics.

Osteopathic Manipulative Therapy in Patients With Chronic Tension-Type Headache: A Pilot Study

CONTEXT

Nonpharmacologic treatment, such as osteopathic manipulative therapy (OMTh; manipulative care provided by foreign-trained osteopaths) may be a beneficial complementary treatment for tension-type headache. However, to the authors' knowledge, the benefit of OMTh in the management of tension-type headache has not been explored, especially chronic tension-type headache (CTTH).

OBJECTIVE

To investigate the effectiveness of OMTh compared with traditional treatment in reducing pain intensity, frequency, and duration of CTTH, and to evaluate the objective postural measurement of the forward head posture (FHP) as an integral parameter in the assessment of the effects of OMTh and traditional management of CTTH.

METHODS

Patients with CTTH were registered at the Headache Centre of Trieste in Italy. At the time of the study, none of the patients had been taking any headache prophylaxis in the past 3 months. A 3-month baseline period was recorded by all patients with an ad hoc diary. Patients were randomly placed in the test or control group using a simple randomization program in Excel (Microsoft). Patients in the OMTh group underwent a 3-month period of OMTh, and patients in the control group were treated with amitriptyline. Pain intensity, frequency, and duration of headaches, as well as FHP were analyzed.

RESULTS

The study enrolled 10 patients (mean [SD] age, 42.6 [15.2] years) in the OMTh group and 10 patients (51.4 [17.3] years) in the control group. The final assessment of OMTh patients showed statistically significant changes in all headache parameters: pain intensity decreased from a mean (SD) score of 4.9 (1.4) to 3.1 (1.1) (P=.002); frequency decreased from 19.8 (6) to 8.3 (6.2) days per month (P=.002); and the duration of headaches decreased from 10 (4.2) to 6 (3) hours (P=.01). Significant improvement of all parameters was found in the control group as well: pain intensity decreased from a mean (SD) score of 5.9 (0.7) to 4.2 (1.75) (P=.03); frequency decreased from 23.4 (7.2) to 7.4 (8.7) days per month (P=.003); and duration decreased from 7.8 (2.9) to 3.6 (2.1) hours (P=.002). Forward head posture significantly improved in OMTh patients (P=.003).

CONCLUSIONS

Our data suggested that OMTh may be an effective treatment to improve headaches in patients with CTTH. Our results also suggest that OMTh may reduce FHP.

Effectiveness of interdisciplinary interventions in paediatric chronic pain management: a systematic review and subset meta-analysis

BACKGROUND

Paediatric chronic pain is a significant problem that can have devastating impacts on quality of life. Multimodal interdisciplinary interventions are the mainstay of paediatric treatment. The aim of this article is to provide a comprehensive review of the effectiveness of interdisciplinary interventions in the management of paediatric chronic pain.

METHODS

Studies were identified via a search of nine databases. The search strategy included concept blocks pertaining to type of pain, study population, and type of intervention. Eligible studies reported the effects of an intervention co-ordinated by two or more healthcare professionals of different disciplines, and recruited a sample aged 22 yr or below with chronic pain. Twenty-eight studies were included, and 21 provided data for inclusion in between- and within-groups meta-analyses.

RESULTS

Patients randomised to interdisciplinary interventions reported significantly lower pain intensity 0-1 month post-intervention compared with patients randomised to the control groups. Within-groups analysis of patients receiving interdisciplinary interventions showed significant improvements pre- to post-intervention in pain intensity, functional disability, anxiety, depression, catastrophising, school attendance, school functioning, and pain acceptance. Few differences were found between interventions delivered in inpatient vs outpatient settings. Significant heterogeneity due mainly to differing outcome variables and intervention content was found in most analyses.

CONCLUSIONS

Overall, interdisciplinary interventions show promise in providing a range of clinical benefits for children with chronic pain. Methodologically robust randomised controlled trials using standardised outcome measures are needed, however, to guide clinical care.

Manual therapy for the pediatric population: a systematic review

Background

This systematic review evaluates the use of manual therapy for clinical conditions in the pediatric population, assesses the methodological quality of the studies found, and synthesizes findings based on health condition. We also assessed the reporting of adverse events within the included studies and compared our conclusions to those of the UK Update report.

Methods

Six databases were searched using the following inclusion criteria: children under the age of 18 years old; treatment using manual therapy; any type of healthcare profession; published between 2001 and March 31, 2018; and English. Case reports were excluded from our study. Reference tracking was performed on six published relevant systematic reviews to find any missed article. Each study that met the inclusion criteria was screened by two authors to: (i) determine its suitability for inclusion, (ii) extract data, and (iii) assess quality of study.

Results

Of the 3563 articles identified, 165 full articles were screened, and 50 studies met the inclusion criteria. Twenty-six articles were included in prior reviews with 24 new studies identified. Eighteen studies were judged to be of high quality. Conditions evaluated were: attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism, asthma, cerebral palsy, clubfoot, constipation, cranial asymmetry, cuboid syndrome, headache, infantile colic, low back pain, obstructive apnea, otitis media, pediatric dysfunctional voiding, pediatric nocturnal enuresis, postural asymmetry, preterm infants, pulled elbow, suboptimal infant breastfeeding, scoliosis, suboptimal infant breastfeeding, temporomandibular dysfunction, torticollis, and upper cervical dysfunction. Musculoskeletal conditions, including low back pain and headache, were evaluated in seven studies. Twenty studies reported adverse events, which were transient and mild to moderate in severity.

Conclusions

Fifty studies investigated the clinical effects of manual therapies for a wide variety of pediatric conditions. Moderate-positive overall assessment was found for 3 conditions: low back pain, pulled elbow, and premature infants. Inconclusive unfavorable outcomes were found for 2 conditions: scoliosis (OMT) and torticollis (MT). All other condition’s overall assessments were either inconclusive favorable or unclear. Adverse events were uncommonly reported. More robust clinical trials in this area of healthcare are needed.

Trial registration

PROSPERA registration number: CRD42018091835

Current perspectives on the development and treatment of chronic daily headache in children and adolescents

Headache disorders subsumed under the term chronic daily headache (CDH), including chronic migraine, chronic tension-type headache and new daily persistent headache, affect up to 4% of the pediatric population and can be highly disabling and challenging to effectively treat. Although historically the knowledge base about this group of headache disorders in children primarily was derived from clinical observation and extrapolation from adult studies, over the past several years there have been important research findings relevant to the development and management of pediatric CDH that can help inform clinical practice. The intent of this paper is to provide a focused review on recent empirical work done on pediatric CDH and suggest avenues for future work.

Non-pharmacological Approaches for Headaches in Young Age: An Updated Review

Headache disorders are common in children and adolescents. Most of the studies on non-pharmacological treatments have however been carried out on adults. In this review we provide information on recent studies examining non-pharmacological approaches for managing headache in children and adolescents. Our search of SCOPUS for primary studies conducted between January 2010 and July 2018 uncovered 11 controlled studies, mostly addressing behavioral approaches, in which a total of 613 patients with a diagnosis of primary headache, and average age 10.2–15.7 years (30–89% females) were recruited. Non-pharmacological treatments were shown to produce sizeable effects on the classical primary endpoint, i.e., headache frequency, with reductions from baseline ranging between 34 and 78%. Among commonly reported secondary endpoints, particularly disability, quality of life, depression and anxiety, marked improvements were noted as well. Taken as a whole, our findings suggest that non-pharmacological treatments constitute a valid option for the prevention of primary headaches in young age. Future research with higher-quality studies is needed. Particular attention needs to be given to studies that randomize patients to condition, blind researchers in charge of evaluating treatment outcomes, routinely include headache frequency as the primary endpoint, include adequate-length follow-up, address changes in biomarkers of disease and other possible mediators of outcome, and that employ predictive models to enhance the level of evidence for these approaches.

Metacognition and Headache: Which Is the Role in Childhood and Adolescence?

Headache, in particular migraine, is one of the most frequent neurological symptoms in children and adolescents and it affects about 60% of children and adolescents all over the world. Headache can affect several areas of child’s functioning, such as school, physical activities, peer, and family relationship. The global and severe burden of this disease requires a multidisciplinary strategy and an effective treatment addressed all of the patient’s needs and based on cutting-edge scientific research. In recent years, research has focused on cognitive factors specifically in functions called metacognitive processes. Metacognition can be defined as the knowledge, beliefs, and cognitive processes involved in monitoring, control, and assessment of cognition. Metacognition seems to be closely related to the ability of theory of mind, the ability to infer, and reason about the mental states of other people in order to predict and explain own behavior. Recent studies found a relationship between metacognitive skills and anxiety, depression, motivation, academic performance, human social interactions, and stress symptoms. This relationship is very interesting for headache treatment, because these factors are the most commonly reported triggers in this disorder and there is a high comorbidity with anxiety and depression in children and adolescents with headache. So, headache and these comorbidities, in particular anxiety and depression, may have in common persistent and maladaptive patterns of thinking which are related to maladaptive metacognitive beliefs. Further research should assess metacognitive processes of children and adolescents with headache in order to increase their ability to control their own cognitive processes and consequently monitor factors which may trigger the attacks.