Post-traumatic Headaches:

Chronic, recurrent headache commonly follows head injury, and interestingly, it is seen more often in individuals who have experienced minor head trauma than in those more seriously injured. I will describe subtypes and behavioral treatments of the post-traumatic headache. One must realize, however, that headache is only one of a number of symptoms that commonly follow head injury. While it may be the symptom that results in a patient seeking medical treatment following brain or head injury, it may on the other hand be only the "tip of the iceberg". Many patients complaining only of posttraumatic headache are found, under close neuropsychological evaluation, to be concurrently suffering from verbal and communicative disorders, deficits in information processing and reaction time, memory difficulties, problems with perception, and impaired concept formation and general reasoning ability (Alves, Colohan, O'Leary, Rimel, & Jane, 1986). Post-traumatic headaches should also be considered within the context of post-traumatic symptoms in general which are often collectively called the "post concussional syndrome". At this point it may be helpful to briefly consider the "post concussional syndrome" in general because many of the statements that I could make about posttraumatic headaches apply to other posttraumatic symptoms as well.