Mild Head Trauma and Chronic Headaches Reported in Soldiers

Thursday, March 19, 2009

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Nearly half of US troops evaluated for chronic headaches following a combat tour have a history of mild head trauma, usually due to exposure to blasts.

That was a key finding by researchers from Madigan Army Medical Center in Tacoma, Wash., who evaluated 81 soldiers from the same brigade who reported recurrent headaches following a one-year combat tour. Of the study participants, 33, or 41 percent, reported having had head or neck trauma while on duty in Iraq. Exposure to blasts was the most common cause of trauma, accounting for 67 percent of head and neck injuries.

According to David Dodick, M.D., President-Elect of the American Headache Society and Professor of Neurology at Mayo Clinic in Arizona, "The headaches occurring in soldiers exposed to head trauma are usually of the migraine type and are similar to non-trauma headaches encountered at a military specialty clinic." He added that the migraine-like headaches began within one week of mild head trauma.

Headaches precipitated by trauma often get better within several weeks, but may persist for months or years. "The temporal association between mild head trauma and headaches, as well as the clinical characteristics of headaches following mild head injury has not been systematically analyzed in returning U.S. soldiers," notes Dr. Dodick.

Soldiers were eligible for the study if they experienced headaches during deployment and if they continued to have the headaches for three or more months after returning from Iraq. Of the 81 in the study group (whose mean age was 29.1 years), 18 soldiers had experienced a concussion without loss of consciousness and 15 had concussion with loss of consciousness. Ten of the soldiers had suffered a whiplash or neck injury while deployed. Multiple head or neck injuries were cited by six of the soldiers.

Previous clinical studies have found that traumatic brain injury has been coined the "signature injury" of the Iraq war, with up to 25 percent of soldiers evacuated from Iraq having a head or neck injury, and one in six soldiers having symptoms of mild traumatic brain injury.

The Madigan Army Medical Center study was conducted prior to mandatory screening for traumatic brain injury of all returning troops by the Department of Defense, which was implemented in 2007.

It is emphasized that the study is limited by the small sample size and may not be applicable to all deployed military personnel with or without a history of head or neck injury. Additional studies are recommended to fully understand the relationship of head or neck trauma and chronic headaches in returning soldiers.

Adds Dr. Dodick, "The headaches and associated symptoms are often disabling, and therefore it's important to raise awareness of this topic so that these returning soldiers receive proper diagnosis, treatment and care."

Study results were published in the online version of Headache, The Journal of Head and Face Pain, the official journal of the American Headache Society.

For further information about headaches, go to the American Headache Society, the American Council for Headache Education and Mayoclinic.com.

###

Mayo Clinic is the first and largest integrated, not-for-profit group practice in the world. As a leading academic medical center in the Southwest, Mayo Clinic focuses on providing specialty and surgical care in more than 65 disciplines at its outpatient facility in north Scottsdale and at Mayo Clinic Hospital. The 244-licensed bed hospital is located at 56th Street and Mayo Boulevard (north of Bell Road) in northeast Phoenix, and provides inpatient care to support the medical and surgical specialties of the clinic, which is located at 134th Street and Shea Boulevard in Scottsdale.

###

About Mayo Clinic

Mayo Clinic is the first and largest integrated, not-for-profit group practice in the world. Doctors from every medical specialty work together to care for patients, joined by common systems and a philosophy of "the needs of the patient come first." More than 3,700 physicians, scientists and researchers, and 50,100 allied health staff work at Mayo Clinic, which has campuses in Rochester, Minn; Jacksonville, Fla; and Scottsdale/Phoenix, Ariz.; and community-based providers in more than 70 locations in southern Minnesota., western Wisconsin and northeast Iowa. These locations treat more than half a million people each year. To obtain the latest news releases from Mayo Clinic, go to www.mayoclinic.org/news. For information about research and education, visit www.mayo.edu. MayoClinic.com (www.mayoclinic.com) is available as a resource for your health stories.