Prevalence of Migraine in the Elderly: A Narrated Review

Migraine is one of the most prevalent neurological disorders among all age groups including the elderly, but the incidence and prevalence of migraine tend to decrease with age. The clinical phenotype of migraine also appears to be different in the elderly patient group in comparison to the younger patient group, with elderly migraine appearing to be more often bilateral and associated with what has become known as late-life migraine accompaniments. Furthermore, difficulty in the differentiation of migraine from vascular insults such as transient ischemic attacks and amyloid angiopathy and other multiple comorbidities, polypharmacy and age-related changes in pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics makes treatments for this cohort challenging but necessary, especially given the worldwide increase in life expectancy, and likelihood of migraine continuing to be a major personal and public health problem. (c) 2019 S. Karger AG, Basel