what changes with age

Although the migraine and other headaches They are usually associated with young or middle-aged people, headache is still a common problem also in advanced stages of life. In a context of population agingunderstanding how these pathologies manifest in older people is essential to improve their detection and treatment.

A recent study carried out by the University of Bari Aldo Moro, in Italy, has analyzed the evolution of headaches throughout the life cyclewith special attention to the older population. To do this, the researchers retrospectively reviewed the data from 3,023 patients treated at the Headache Center of the Bari General Hospital between 2017 and 2025. The participants were divided into four age groups, from young adults to over 60 years old, which They represented 13.4% of the total.

The results indicate that, After a certain age, diagnoses of “typical” migraine decrease and others such as tension headache increase.different primary headaches or even secondary headaches. This suggests that, with aging, headache takes on less classic forms, which may complicate its clinical recognition.

By focusing on the 2,390 patients diagnosed with migrainethe study provides a key piece of information: chronic migraine is significantly more common in older people, with a prevalence of 40.3% in this group. Furthermore, these patients usually have had the disease for more years and describe longer attacks, although with less presence of associated symptoms such as nausea, photophobia or phonophobia. On the other hand, migraine with aura appears somewhat more frequently in younger groups.

The work also highlights the importance of therapeutic approach in advanced ages. A notable proportion of older people had excessive medication use, a factor that can aggravate headaches and make it difficult to control. Likewise, fatigue was identified as a particularly common symptom in this group, contributing to a greater negative impact on quality of life.

The authors conclude that Both the type of headache and the characteristics of the migraine change with age. Chronic migraine predominates in older people, with longer attacks, fewer autonomic symptoms and greater fatigue, while medication abuse becomes a major clinical challenge. These findings reinforce the need to make diagnoses adapted to age and to design personalized treatments that take into account the particularities of the older population.