• S Faux and J Sheedy.
• Sacred Heart Rehabilitation Unit, St Vincent's Hospital, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. sfaux@optusnet.com.au
• Pain Med. 2008 Nov 1;9(8):1001-11.

ObjectiveTo establish the prevalence of post traumatic headache, persisting at 3 months following minor traumatic brain injury.DesignA prospective controlled study of patients admitted with a diagnosis of mild traumatic brain injury and matched orthopedic controls over 12 months during 2004.SettingA level two inner city Emergency Department in Sydney, Australia.PatientsOne hundred eligible sequential admissions with mild traumatic brain injury as defined by American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine, 1993, and 100 matched minor injury controls with nondeceleration injuries.InterventionsSubjects were part of a study on prediction of postconcussive syndrome and had neuropsychological tests, balance test and pain recordings taken at the time of injury, at 1 month and at 3 months post injury.Outcome MeasuresMain measures were the reporting of headache "worse than prior to the injury" and concordant with the definition of Posttraumatic Headache according to International Headache Society Classification of Headache Disorders 2003.Results15.34% of those with minor head injury continued to complain of perisistant posttraumatic headache at 3 months compared to 2.2% of the minor injury controls.ConclusionsTo the authors' knowledge this is the first controlled prospective study in the prevalence of posttraumatic headache following mild traumatic brain injury.

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