Migraines are one of the most common, episodic disorders, in which the patient experiences a severe headache that may also accompany with nausea, and/or light and sound sensitivity. Migraine pain can be mild to severe in intensity and can last four to seventy hours (Buttaro, Trybulski, Bailey, and, Sandberg-Cook, 2013). It usually has a preliminary period in which patients can experience tiredness, decreased concentration, irritability, and noticeable yawning. Warning signs like these may occur several hours or even days before the full onset of the migraine episode (Sprenger and Goadsby, 2009). Patients can experience a migraine with or without aura. The aura is described as a visual disturbance where a patient sees shimmering bright light, …show more content…
The patient must also have one of the following criteria: Visual or audio sensitivity, nausea, and vomiting. For the criteria for the patient who has migraines with aura they have to have even more specific criteria in addition to the criteria mentioned previously (Edmunds and Mayhew, …show more content…
One theory suggests that migraines are manifested by a phenomenon called cortical spreading depression (CSD). The patient may experience an aura prior to the start of migraine pain. CSD is described as a local disturbance of the brain function that is characterized by a temporary, local suppression of the spontaneous electrical activity in the cortex that spreads over this region of the brain, and appears to be the symptom of CSD (Sprenger and Goadsby, 2009).
Another theory, called dura plasma protein extravasation, suggests that plasma proteins in in the brain, specifically the dura, leak out and cause migraine pain. Along with this, there is also excessive trigeminal nerve stimulation and is one function of an approaching migraine episode. Sumatriptan, is a medication that can effectively actually inhibit this process, and unfortunately it was discovered that this was not successful in controlling the pain. Because of this, this theory doesn’t help solve what the actual mechanism of migraine headache symptoms really are (Sprenger and Goadsby,
Currently Dr. Correia is a Neuropsychologist at the Providence Veterans Affairs Medical Center. At Brown University, he is the Neuropsychology Intern Track Coordinator, the Director of the Neuropsychology Grant Writing Seminar and works in the MRI research Facility. He is the Assistant Director at the Neuroimaging Center at Butler Hospital and is also in the Imaging Core Executive Committee there.
Trigeminal Autonomic Cephalalgias (TACs) are highly interesting to me: This group of unilateral, excruciating primary headaches is accompanied by ipsilateral cranial autonomic symptoms and comprises of three major forms:
and they were different from most headaches he had in the past. He would forget things, and then forget more often. He said he had a vague feeling that something just wasn’t right. One day he had a seizure while he was at work.
The most common and well described pain transmission is “gate control theory of pain”. This theory was first proposed by Melzack and Wall in 1965 whereby they used the analogy of gate to explain the inhibition of pain which exists within the dorsal horn of the spinal cord. For instance, when tissue damage occurs, substances such as prostaglandin, serotonin, histamine and bradykinin are released from the injured cell. Individual usually consume or apply pain medications such as NSAIDs whereby these medications will cause electrical nerve impulse at the end of the sensory nerve fiber via nociceptor. Nociceptor is a pain receptor that is commonly found in the skin, cornea of eye and organ of motion such as muscles and ligaments. These nerve impulses
Epilepsy, also known as “seizure disorder,” or “seizure attack,” is the fourth most common neurological disorder known to mankind, affecting an estimated 2.3 million adults and 467,711 children in the United States. Unfortunately this disorder is becoming far more common and widespread worldwide. This staggering number of cases of people suffering from Epilepsy also involves an average growth rate of 150,000 new cases each year in the United States alone. Generally, many of the people who develop who are a part of the new are mainly either young children or older adults. Your brain communicates through chemical and electrical signals that are all specialized for specific tasks. However, through the process of communication, chemical messengers, also known as neurotransmitters can suddenly fail, resulting in what is known as a seizure attack. Epilepsy occurs when a few too many brain cells become excited, or activated simultaneously, so that the brain cannot function properly and to it’s highest potential. Epilepsy is characterized when there is an abnormal imbalance in the chemical activity of the brain, leading to a disruption in the electrical activity of the brain. This disruption specifically occurs in the central nervous system (CNS), which is the part of the nervous system that contains the brain and spinal cord. This causes an interruption in communication between presynaptic neurons and postsynaptic neurons; between the axon of one neuron, the message sender and the dendrite of another neuron, the message recipient. Consequently, the effects that epileptic seizures may induce may range anywhere from mild to severe, life-threatening ramifications and complications. There are many different types of seizures associa...
Neurology. April 1992. suppl 4.. Pp. 5-7. Rowland, L. P., ed.
Kanske, P., Heissler, J., Schönfelder, S., Forneck, J., & Wessa, M. (2013). Neural correlates of
Several tests are done in order to determine if a patient meets these criteria, and this can be done by physicians and neurologists.... ... middle of paper ... ... Retrieved January 19, 2014, from nia.nih.gov: http://www.nia.nih.gov/alzheimers/publication/part-1-basics-healthy-brain/inside-human-brain. a.
To avoid or eliminate the triggers, it is up to each individual to get help or determine alone the factors that cause these unbearable migraines.
Our patient Ms. Blum is a 28-year-old white female who presents with symptoms of a migraine, such as waking up by a severe headache that she states is often made worse when she turns on the light. In addition, Ms. Blum presents with several factors that can trigger her migraines including her lack of sleep, her stressful life as concluded by her statement that this has been a difficult period in her life and her approaching deadline to turn in her dissertation, her weekend alcohol consumption, her menstrual cycle since she notices that a couple of days before her period starts she experiences these headaches, also she states that food doesn’t seem to appeal to her and it takes her effort to eat a meal, and her diagnosis of major depressive disorder.
(Sacks, 2012) The person experiencing them is convinced that what they are seeing or smelling is real, and become very confused as to what is reality and what is not. These most commonly occur in people who suffer from a mental illness such as schizophrenia or various types of psychotic disorders. In this article the author discusses how hallucinations are becoming more common amongst people today, and the different scenarios where they are more present. Hallucinations can occur when experiencing migraines, seizures, or even consuming too much of a particular medication. (Sacks, 2012)
However, these pains are easily taken care of with just rest and taking things slowly and the symptoms will subside (“Bidmc). The second phase of physical symptoms is dizziness. Classifying what a person means by dizziness can severely affect the treatment of the symptom. A mild case of poor equilibrium like lack of balance is one thing, that can simply be cured with rest and patience. However, if the symptom is more serious, like not being able to walk or vomiting from the dizziness, this could be caused by a more serious injury to the brain and medical attention should requested. The best way for a patient to avoid dizziness is to not overdue activity, consistent rest, and slowly move into more physical activities. Nausea and motion sickness are fairly common such as migraines and queasiness. These are also related to equilibrium issues. The severity of the nausea and headaches differ between the severity of the head injury. Just upset stomachs and getting nauseous from car rides are caused from fairly mild brain trauma, but more severe sickness such as vomiting, not being able to eat and hold down
Ninety percent of Americans have experienced a headache at some point in their lives. Only four percent of the entire Earth’s population has never experienced a headache. This is not surprising since there are so many different types of headaches. The two major groups of headaches are primary and secondary. The primary headache group consists of Tension Type Headaches, Migraines, and Cluster Headaches. The secondary headache group consists of Cervicogenic Headaches, Posttraumatic Headache Syndrome, Medication Overuse Headaches, Sinus Headaches, Postdural Puncture Headaches, Temporal Arteritis, and Headaches in the elderly. These various types of headaches can have different effects on the body and some can become more painful than others.
Migraine is not only a debilitating disease affecting millions, it is a women’s health issue. Primary headache disorders including migraines are one of the top leading causes of disability for women worldwide (Migraine Research Foundation, 2014). Chronic migraine is and should be considered a complication of episodic migraine that extracts a significant human and social burden from those living with this condition. This is particularly true for women, since they experience a greater disease burden as demonstrated by greater headache related disability and reduced productivity relative to men. In women, the prevalence of chronic migraines is more two fold higher than in men (The Journal of Family Practice, 2014).
Migraine is a widespread, chronic and intermittently disabling disorder characterized by recurrent headaches with or without aura.[1] The prevalence of migraine is about 6-8% in men and 12-15% in women as per the conducted studies. Approximately 3000 migraine attacks occur every day for each million of the general population which impress upon the incidence and prevalence of migraine .[2] The rate of migraine varies globally, and more so with the data available in many countries at present, recent anecdotal evidence suggests higher rates in certain places like India.[3] Recurrent migraines can be disabling: the cost of missed workdays and impaired performance associated with migraines in the United States totals around $13 billion each year.4,5 Preventive therapy, which can reduce the frequency of migraines by 50 percent or more, is used by less than one half of persons with migraine headache.6 In Ayuveda Arddhavabhedaka - a comparable clinical condition of migraine. is