[Characteristics of chronic headaches after whiplash injury]

The aim of this study was to identify the characteristics of post-traumatic headache after whiplash injury in order to obtain some indications as to the pathogenesis of this particularly frequent clinical entity.

A retrospective study of 63 patients who had suffered whiplash injury and who had persistent chronic pain was conducted.

Forty-seven patients complained of headache and pain in the cervical spine and 16 of pain in the cervical spine alone. Among the patients with headache 74% complained of tension-like pain, while only about 10% had identifiable post-trauma migraine headache with or without aura. Current neurophysiological hypotheses of central dysfunction due to neurochemical disorders induced by the initial nociceptive stimuli, frequently found in the general population, would not explain the disabling characteristics observed in these patients with chronic pain.

A multifactorial pathogenesis of post-traumatic chronic headache should be entertained, suggesting that not only trauma but also extra-trauma factors unrelated to whiplash would be involved.