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Pharmacotherapy for Primary Headache Disorders in the Elderly

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Pharmacological Management of Headaches

Part of the book series: Headache ((HEAD))

Abstract

The proportion of elderly people in society will dramatically increase in all western countries in the coming years. Even though headaches are relatively less common in the elderly than in the young this development means that the health system has to deal with an increasing number of older patients with headache. Since the pharmacokinetics and the pharmacodynamics of analgesics and specific headache drugs can be different in the elderly, the therapy has to take into account these points as well as the fact that headache symptoms may be different in the elderly compared to younger patients. In contrast to the increasing numbers of potential patients, only a relative small number of publications deal with this specific topic and there are almost no systematic studies about headache therapy in patients older than 65 years. There is some evidence that the symptoms of primary headaches change with age and that the vegetative symptoms decrease and the headaches become more prominent. There are also some headache and facial pain syndromes which mostly develop in patients older than 50 years, e.g., hypnic headache, giant arteritis, and trigeminal neuralgia.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurology, University of Munich, Munich, Germany

    Andreas Straube MD

  2. Department of Neurology, Klinikum Grosshadern, Marchioninistrasse 15, Munich, 81377, Germany

    Andreas Straube MD

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  1. Andreas Straube MD
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Correspondence to Andreas Straube MD .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurology, Athens Naval Hospital, Athens, Greece

    Dimos D. Mitsikostas

  2. Department of Neurology, Ghent University Hospital, Ghent, Belgium

    Koen Paemeleire

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Straube, A. (2016). Pharmacotherapy for Primary Headache Disorders in the Elderly. In: Mitsikostas, D., Paemeleire, K. (eds) Pharmacological Management of Headaches. Headache. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-19911-5_16

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-19911-5_16

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-19910-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-19911-5

  • eBook Packages: MedicineMedicine (R0)

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