MOTION SICKNESS IN CHILDHOOD MIGRAINE

AGATA MALTESE^1*, BEATRICE GALLAI^2*, PALMIRA ROMANO^3*, LUCREZIA D’ORO⁴, ROSA MAROTTA⁵, FRANCESCO LAVANO⁵, SERENA MARIANNA LAVANO⁵, GABRIELE TRIPI^6,7, MARGHERITA SALERNO⁸

¹Department of Psychological, Pedagogical and Educational Sciences, University of Palermo, Italy - ²Department of Surgical and Biomedical Sciences, University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy - ³Centro LARS, Sarno, Italy - ⁴Centro Relax, Benevento, Italy - ⁵Department of Medical and Surgery Sciences, University “Magna Graecia”, Catanzaro, Italy - ⁶Department PROSAMI, University of Palermo, Italy - ⁷Childhood Psychiatric Service for Neurodevelopmental Disorders, CH Chinon, France - ⁸Sciences for Mother and Child Health Promotion, University of Palermo, Italy

Background: Migraine is a chronic, progressive, and debilitating disorder that has an impact on the lives of millions of indivi-

duals. The origins of the disability can be traced into childhood and adolescence for most adult migraine sufferers. The group of periodic syndromes consists in symptoms related to migraine, thought to be migraine equivalent or precursors.

Aim of this study is to assess the role of MS as risk factors for childhood migraine.

Materials and methods: 441 subjects (211 Females) aged 6-13 years (mean 9.20; SD 2.42), consecutively referred between October 2007 to March 2009 for primary headaches to pediatric Centers for Headache in Childhood. Control group consisted

of 365 subjects (175 F) aged 7-13 years (mean 9.08; SD 3.02).

Results: Two groups were not different for age (F=0.390; p=0.539) and sex ratio (Chi-square=0.002; p=0.966). Headache

percentage distribution was the following: MoA 38.32%, MA 11.11%, FETTH 16.78%, CTTH 20.63%. Logistic regression shows a greater OR for CVS and MS associated for migraine group (MoA and MA patients), respectively 8.28 (IC95% 2.35 - 29.16) for CVS and 5.22 (IC95% 3.5 - 7.77); moreover, CVS cause a consistent increase in OR of 3.69 (IC95% 2.21 - 6.17) also for headache group (CTTH and FETTH patients).

Discussion: Periodic syndromes could be considered the natural precursors of migraine almost but not only in children, as reported in some studies in adulthood.