D'Arcy Little, MD, CCFP
Director of Medical Education, York Community Services, Toronto, ON,
and Academic Fellow, Department of Family and Community Medicine,
University of Toronto, Toronto, ON.
Introduction and Epidemiology
While symptom complaints tend to increase as the population ages due to age and comorbid conditions, the prevalence of headaches actually decreases in the elderly compared to their younger counterparts.1,2,3 However, headache is still very common in this age group and causes significant morbidity. It is the 10th most common reported symptom in women, and the 14th most common symptom in men over the age of 65 living in the community.1,2,3 A large cohort study found that 11% of women over the age of 65 years and 5% of men over this age reported frequent headaches.1
While most (two-thirds of) headaches in the elderly result from benign causes such as tension-type, migraines and cluster headaches, one-third of headaches in this age group arise secondary to systemic disease and primary intracranial lesions.2,4 This is significantly different from the situation in younger patients, where only 10% of headaches are caused by such significant conditions (Table 1).2,4 Another difference in headaches between the young and old is the fact that even benign dysfunctional headaches (e.g. migraine, tension-type, cluster) can have an atypical presentation in the elderly.
