Libri di Timothy J. Steiner

Headache disorders are among the most common disorders of the nervous system. They are pandemic and, in many cases, they are recurrent and can accompany the patient for the whole life. These disorders impose a substantial burden on headache sufferers, on their families and on society: the individual impact is measured by the frequency and severity of attacks, while the societal burden is measured in terms of loss of activity at work and school as well as of costs for the health system. As a matter of facts, headaches are ranked in the top ten, and maybe the top five, causes of disability worldwide: they are therefore extraordinarily common. Population-based studies have mostly focused on migraine, which, even if it is the most frequently studied headache disorder, is not the most common . Other types of headache, such as the more prevalent TTH and sub-types of the more disabling chronic daily headache, have so far received less attention and need to be better investigated. This book will provide a useful tool to a wide medical population, who is required specific skills to diagnose and manage these frequent and often disabling disorders .Furthermore, it could also represents a compendium for medical students who are usually introduced to this topic through multidisciplinary university programmes.

This is the first book devoted to the study of the social and economic consequences of headache. Reducing the Burden of Headache analyses the financial cost of headache diseases, the disability and suffering they cause and the impact they have on the quality of life of the sufferers and their families. These are issues of major importance; migraine appears in the top 20 list of diseases ranked according to years lived with disability. Headache, in general, is thought to account for approximately 20% of all days lost from work. Of even greater importance is the impact on everyday life, studies have shown that migraine has a greater impact on the quality of life of sufferers than many other diseases generally considered to be more serious. This book describes and analyses the epidemiological data accumulated in the field and suggests guidelines and interventions aimed at improving healthcare for headache. Adoption of these suggestions combined with judicious use of existing resources and modern treatment options can lead to great improvements in the lives of headache sufferers world-wide. This book will be of interest to neurologists, general practitioners, epidemiologists, public health specialists, health service managers and all those interested in improving services and outcomes for sufferers of headache.