Headache in Children and Adolescents With Dr. Serena Orr

The majority of children and adolescents experience headache, with pooled estimates suggesting that approximately 60% of youth are affected. Migraine and tension-type headache are the leading cause of neurologic disability among children and adolescents 10 years and older.

In this episode, Allison Weathers, MD, FAAN speaks with Serena Orr, MD, MSc, FRCPC, author of the article “Headache in Children and Adolescents,” in the Continuum® April 2024 Headache issue.

Dr. Weathers is a Continuum® Audio interviewer and an associate chief medical information officer at Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio.

Dr. Orr is an assistant professor in the departments of Pediatrics, Community Health Sciences, and Clinical Neurosciences at Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary and a pediatric neurologist at Alberta Children's Hospital in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

Additional Resources

Read the article: Headache in Children and Adolescents

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Guest: @SerenaLOrr

Transcript 

 Dr Jones: This is Dr. Lyell Jones, Editor-in-Chief of Continuum, the premier topic-based neurology clinical review and CME journal from the American Academy of Neurology. Thank you for joining us on Continuum Audio, a companion podcast to the journal. Continuum Audio features conversations with the guest editors and authors of Continuum, who are the leading experts in their fields. Subscribers to the Continuum journal can read the full article or listen to verbatim recordings of the article by visiting the link in the show notes. Subscribers also have access to exclusive audio content not featured on the podcast. As an ad-free journal entirely supported by subscriptions, if you're not already a subscriber, we encourage you to become one. For more information on subscribing, please visit the link in the show notes. AAN members, stay tuned after the episode to hear how you can get CME for listening. 

Dr Weathers: This is Dr. Allison Weathers. Today, I'm interviewing Dr. Serena Orr on pediatric headache, which is part of the April 2024 Continuum issue on headache. Dr. Orr is an Assistant Professor at the University of Calgary, and a Pediatric Neurologist at Alberta Children's Hospital in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Welcome to the podcast. So, thank you, Dr. Orr, for taking the time to speak with me about this fantastic article that covers such an important topic – headache in the pediatric population, in children and adolescents. First, I'd love to start by learning a little bit about you. Where do you practice, and how did you get interested in this topic? I love learning more about the authors of these incredible articles and how they became interested in their fields. So, you know, pediatric neurology is already a pretty subspecialized area of medicine – how did you become interested even further subspecializing in headache?

Dr Orr: Well, thank you for the invitation. Nice to meet you, Dr. Weathers. I’m Serena Orr. I’m a clinician-scientist, pediatric neurologist, and headache specialist based in Canada at the Alberta Children’s Hospital in Calgary, Alberta, just outside of the Rockies. I’m really passionate about headache medicine. I think I came to it because it allowed me to marry my interests in neurology and psychology together. I did my undergraduate studies at McGill in psychology and really wanted to take a biopsychosocial approach to my practice. The first child neurology patient I ever saw was a child who was experiencing migraine and having a lot of disability from it, with lots of impacts on her life - and I really saw an opportunity to take a holistic approach to the patient and marry my interests in neuroscience, neurology, and psychology together. So, I'm very excited to talk to you today about this topic that I'm really passionate about and that I think is underserved – um, hopefully get more people excited about it.

Dr Weathers: But so great, and I'm sure we will do that just based on how excited I was just reading your article. So, I always like to start, actually, with what you feel is the most important clinical message of your article. What is your biggest takeaway you want to leave our listeners with?

Dr Orr: Yeah, well I think this is a really big topic in neurology. So, if you look at the reasons for consulting a child neurologist, headache falls into the top three. 60% of youth experience headache in youth. If we look at what presents to neurology in terms of headache, the majority is migraine – and so that’s a big focus of this article, because anywhere between a half to 88% of headache consultations in neurology are for migraine. And as I kind of alluded to in discussing my interests in this area, you know, it's really important to take a biopsychosocial approach to managing any chronic pain disorder, including migraine and headache disorders. Another big takeaway point from the article is that - specific to pediatric headache - there's really high placebo response rates that we're still trying to understand and grapple with in the field, and I think this underscores the importance in really doing patient-centered care and ensuring that you're educating patients and families about the level of evidence that we have about the placebo response rates and engaging in shared decision-making when you're choosing treatments together. So, I think those would be the main take-home points.

Dr Weathers: I think both really critical. And I think even without – I’ll put my plug in – even without the placebo effect, I think that shared decision-making is such an important concept for all of us in neurology to think about - but I think you make such the important point that with it, it becomes absolutely critical. I want to expand on a concept that you were just talking about. Pediatric headaches are so incredibly common, and you make the point in the article so well that they're one of the leading causes of neurological disability in pediatric patients. They have such a significant impact that really touches all aspects of these children's lives - both at school, how they impact their hobbies - pretty much everything that they do, and these long-reaching impacts. But then you go on to say that pediatric headache remains the most underfunded pediatric disease category when you take into account allocated public research dollars, which was just staggering to me. Why do you think this is?

Dr Orr: I think there's a few reasons. So, one of the main reasons, I think, is that headache medicine has been underserved - there haven't been enough people who have gravitated to this field. I think this is rapidly changing as we train more people and show the world how important this topic is and how much exciting translational research is going on. But, historically, this has been a very small subspecialty that's been underserved relative to disease burden (so not enough scientists equals less research funding) - but there's another aspect to this as well. There was a paper published in 2020 by Mirin – who actually looked at research dollars in NIH based on disease burden and whether the diseases were male or female dominant - and found that there's a significant gender bias in research funding. Male-dominant diseases tend to be significantly overfunded relative to female-dominant diseases when you look at disease burden - and if you look at the female-dominant disease table, headache disorders and migraine are in the top three most underfunded disease categories amongst the underfunded female-dominant diseases. That data has been replicated looking at NIH dollars on the pediatric side as well. They didn't look at gender breakdown in the pediatric paper that was published a couple of years ago, but found, actually, that pediatric headache disorders are the most underfunded in terms of NIH research dollars to pediatric diseases – so, top underfunded relative to disease burden. So, yeah, being underserved as a field - and then, I think, gender bias has also played a significant role in what gets funded over time.

Dr Weathers: Wow, that is hard to think about. And I think those are really insightful points and ones we really need to think about as we think about the bias in our research and our funding. Why is access to care and treatment for these children and adolescents so important? I know this seems like a super obvious one, but it feels like the answer is actually really much more complex.

Dr Orr: Well, there's data to show that earlier diagnosis can lead to better long-term outcomes for youth with migraine - and this is really important, because if you look at the incidence curves for migraine, you see that at least a third, if not more, of incident cases occur before adulthood. We also know there's some GWAS data to show that youth-onset migraine has a higher genetic loading when looking at polygenic risk scores than adult-onset migraine, so people who have migraine onset in youth may be more genetically loaded (that may be important). And we also know that early access to diagnosis and treatment gives them a better long-term prognosis. We know that headache disorders and migraine are associated not only with long-term potential for disability on the physical side, but also increase the risk of psychiatric comorbidities developing over time, so there's really a huge opportunity in accessing a diagnosis and treatment early to improve long-term function - both on the medical side, but also potentially avert poor mental health outcomes - and also diagnose and treat a subset of people with the disease that may be more genetically loaded. We don't know if that impacts outcomes, but potentially, it does. So there's lots of reasons, I think, that we can get in there early and make a big impact – and even for those who it takes a while to find effective treatment for, really having access to education early so that they understand their disease and also ways that they can engage in self-management strategies, I think, is really empowering to the patient and really important (even if we're struggling to find the best medical therapy).

Dr Weathers: You laid out a lot of really important reasons, and again, it goes back to the arguments made at the beginning about why it's so important to increase the funding so that this is no longer an area that's underserved, so that we are able to increase the access, and that everybody who needs this kind of care is able to get it. I want to shift a little bit and think about how we diagnose and work up patients who present with a headache. So as a neurologist - and also as a parent - one of the scariest considerations for me is figuring out if a headache is just a headache or if it's a sign of something else (you know, what we think of as a secondary headache disorder). What is your approach to distinguishing between the two?

Dr Orr: We take a very clinical approach to diagnosis. We don't have specific biomarkers for different headache disorders, so we're still, you know, relying on a really detailed history and physical exam in order to sort out the diagnosis. As I discussed in the article, really the key first branch point (like you say) is, is this a primary headache disorder or a secondary headache disorder? There's some tools that we can use in practice to try to get at that, I think the most useful of which is the SNOOP tool - it's an acronym that goes over headache, red and orange flags. Every time I write an article where I discuss this, it's expanded to include more red or orange flags (it’s in its probably third or fourth iteration now), but there's a nice table in the article that goes over some of these red and orange flags. It includes things like systemic feature (like headache, nuchal rigidity), if there's a history of cancer, if there's associated, you know, headache waking child up in the morning with vomiting - and a variety of features. I have to say the level of evidence for some of the features is relatively low, and our understanding of some of the red flags has changed over time. As one example, we used to think occipital headaches in youth were almost always associated with a secondary headache disorder, but now there's more emerging data to show that it's actually relatively common for youth with migraine to have an occipital location. So, really, using the tool is about kind of putting the whole picture together to try to risk stratify. In the majority of youth who present with recurrent headaches, who don’t have any red or orange flags, and who have an unremarkable neurological examination without focal deficits, it typically is such that we don't have to do further investigation - but any red or orange flags (or a combination of them), any focal deficits on exam, would typically be where we would be considering neuroimaging. It's very unusual that we have an indication to do an EEG or large amounts of blood work in youth with headache, but it is context specific - for example, a case presenting with recurrent hemiplegia (you may have Todd's paralysis on the differential and you may want to do an EEG), or in a youth who also has GI symptoms (I picked up some youth with celiac disorder who have chronic headaches as well). So there are specific circumstances where blood work, EEG may be indicated (or obviously lumbar puncture in the case of suspected infection, et cetera), but for the most part, we're really relying on a very thorough history and physical exam to sort out our pretest probability of a secondary headache disorder and whether we need to do neuroimaging and further investigations.

Dr Weathers: I think keeping in mind that systematic approach and really working through the algorithm is really reassuring and makes sense that, one, you won't miss something kind of worrisome, but on the other hand, that you're also not doing unnecessary testing, either. Along those lines, what do you think is the easiest mistake to make when treating children and adolescents with headache, and how do you avoid it?

Dr Orr: I think the easiest mistake to make is undertreatment. Both for acute and preventive therapies, I often see undertreatment. I think families are often hesitant to give medication to their children, and so I have a lot of families say, “Oh, well, you know we typically wait the attacks out until they get more severe, we try to avoid medication, we use cold compresses, et cetera.” So, explaining to families that acute treatment (of course, we don't want to overuse it) and overusing simple analgesics (NSAIDS) more than three days a week can increase the risk of higher frequency of attacks and medication overuse headache - but undertreatment is a risk, too. And the way I like to explain it to families is in the scientific basis of pain chronification - so I'll say to families, “You know, we have these pain pathways in our brain. If we let them go off for long periods of time, they get stronger (and so that's where we want to get medication in quickly to try to shorten the exposure of the attacks). When you don't do that, those pain pathways may start out like a dirt road - and maybe then you have lots of long attacks, and then it gets paved, and then it becomes a highway.” I find it's a useful way to help families understand the concept of pain chronification and why we want them to treat attacks. The same thing goes for undertreatment on the preventive side. If you know a youth is having frequent attacks that are impacting their life and their ability to function, we really should be thinking about a daily preventive treatment, because we know that pill-based interventions will result in a significant reduction in headache frequency in at least two-thirds of youth - and again, allowing the youth to have frequent attacks contributes to that pain chronification (and explain it to families in a similar way to what I just explained for acute treatment) - but there can be a lot of hesitancy to engage with pill-based treatments, even though we know that they can be helpful.

Dr Weathers: I think that's a really powerful point - and I think something we also, frankly, probably tend to do on the adult side as well – but, especially, I could see where there's even probably more hesitancy in children and adolescents (this concern that we're going to overtreat them and then end up inadequately treating, which leads to increased problems). And also goes back to the concept you were talking about earlier about the importance of shared decision-making and really engaging with the patient and their families in the discussion early on to help avoid that, as well to have everybody aware of the benefits and the side effects of all of the different options, I think is so critical. I was also really excited to see you (in the article) write about the importance of a trauma-informed care approach. This is an area I'm really passionate about in my work as a clinical informaticist and how we can leverage the electronic health record to support trauma-informed care and raising awareness of what a patient's triggers may be. Can you explain to our listeners who may not be knowledgeable about this approach what it means, and why you think that this might be applicable to children adolescents with headache?

Dr Orr: Thanks for bringing that up. I think it's really important as well. We've done some work in my lab (and many others have as well) to show that there's a relationship between adverse childhood experiences and the development of headache disorders in youth and adults. By adverse childhood experiences, I mean exposure to highly stressful (like toxic stress) environments in early childhood, such as experiencing death of a parent, divorce, abuse, neglect. So, we know that adverse childhood experiences are associated with higher risk of developing migraine and headache disorders, and knowing that and how common these are amongst our patients - really think it's important to advocate for screening all children, adolescents coming in with recurrent headaches for adverse childhood experiences and exposure to trauma, because it really will impact not only how you interact with the patient, but also potentially what you will screen them for on the mental health side. And so providing trauma-informed care, I think - of course we want it to be targeted - but really taking this approach with all patients is actually a good way to think about it, because trauma is very common in our society, and some of the ways that we've measured trauma in the past (like some of the examples that I gave, divorce, death of a parent) are really narrow and don't encompass broader aspects of trauma (like systemic racism and other things that people are experiencing that haven’t been adequately measured). So what trauma-informed care is - you know, there's a few core aspects, and one is screening all patients for trauma. The way I do that in clinic is just asking them if they've had any major stressful life events (and then I give a few examples), but there are standardized questionnaires that can be used for this as well. And then really trying to develop a nurturing rapport with the patient - an open listening strategy, asking open-ended questions, being empathic with patients and families - I know we all try to do this, anyway, but really focusing on that, especially in the context of trauma. And then thinking carefully about not only how you're talking to the patient, but how you're approaching them during the physical exam (so, for example, asking permission before touching the patient rather than just diving into the exam to be sensitive to that). And then also recognizing, like I said, that some of the ways that we've conceptualized trauma have been a little bit narrow, and that trauma may occur in context outside of what we traditionally think of.

Dr Weathers: Again, I think that's so important and could be certainly much more broadly applied than even just to this one field, but thrilled to see that you're incorporating it into your work and your research (and again, it was discussed in the article) - and, absolutely, I think that the more that we incorporate it as well here, I think, that the better off for all of our patients and the improved care we provide. Moving on from that, I always like to end my interviews on a positive and hopeful note, and so I'd love to hear from you what you're most excited about in the field of pediatric headache. What breakthroughs do you think are coming, or what's giving you the most hope?

Dr Orr: There's so much, there's so much exciting stuff going on in our field (and so, you know, I'll have to rein in myself in here), but one thing is there's been an explosion of novel treatment options on the adult migraine side in the last five to ten years, including agents targeted at the CGRP pathway, calcitonin gene-related peptide, some monoclonal antibodies, and receptor antagonists. There's been an explosion of neuromodulation options with now five devices that have various levels of FDA clearance for use in adults and/or youth with migraine. And there are, for most of these devices and novel drugs, either published studies or ongoing research into how they may be used in youth, so I'm hopeful that we will have more treatment options that are evidence based for youth going forward. This is in part due to the Pediatric Research Equity Act that came out a couple of decades ago now that has put requirements for pediatric studies when new drugs are approved by the FDA for adults - so I think that has had an impact, and I'm hopeful that we'll have an expanded treatment landscape in the years to come. There's also a lot of really exciting, more kind of fundamental research going on that I think will help us move the pediatric field forward more rapidly. In the past, we have really often borrowed from what the adult neurologists are doing for adults with headache disorders without really understanding some of the fundamental biological and psychosocial differences between headache disorders onset in youth versus adulthood, and so there is more and more research going on to understand the biology of migraine in youth and some of the risk factors at this age and some of the features that may make youth a little bit different, because it's very rare that youth are just little versions of adults for any disease or problem. And then, you know, I've seen a really large expansion in the number of trainees who are interested in headache medicine since I've entered this field (I've even got one of our residents who's going to do a headache fellowship, which is exciting), and seeing the growth and interest in headache medicine and the number of people being trained really gives me a lot of hope for the future, because there's so much work to be done in this area, and, really, that's where we're going to have the largest impact - is in mentoring and fostering the next generation of headache neurologists. So, there's lots of reasons to be excited, and I would say to the trainees listening that if you want an exciting career where there's lots of opportunity to make impact both clinically on your patients and in terms of educating the next generation and spearheading research initiatives, headache medicine is for you.

Dr Weathers: I think that is incredibly inspiring and will hopefully get a lot of our listeners excited about joining this incredible field. Well, thank you for, again, this great article and for all of your time this evening, I've learned so much and really enjoyed speaking with you.

Dr Orr: Thank you. Likewise, it was great to have this opportunity. I really enjoyed it.

 

Dr Weathers: Again, today, we've been interviewing Dr. Serena Orr whose article on pediatric headache appears in the most recent issue of Continuum on headache. Be sure to check out Continuum Audio podcasts from this and other issues. And thank you to our listeners for joining today.

Dr Monteith: This is Dr. Teshamae Monteith, Associate Editor of Continuum Audio. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, you’ll love the journal, which is full of in-depth and clinically relevant information important for neurology practice. And right now, during our Spring Special, all subscriptions are 15% off. Go to Continpub.com/ Spring2024, or use the link in the episode notes, to learn more and take advantage of this great discount. This offer ends June 30, 2024. AAN members: go to the link in the episode notes and complete the evaluation to get CME. Thank you for listening to Continuum Audio.