Effects of headaches during neuropsychological testing of mild head injury patients

The Luria-Nebraska Neuropsychological Battery (LNNB) and the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) were administered to 37 mild head injury patients, whose headache activity was rated at the time of testing. A one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) compared each of the 11 LNNB scores of patients with severe headache, mild headache, and no headache. The results revealed no significant differences on varied neuropsychological tests between the three headache groups. Similar analyses of the 13 MMPI scores also indicated no significant differences between the three headache groups across various psychoemotional measures. The results are consistent with previous research and suggest that headaches do not affect the performance of mild head injury patients on varied neuropsychological tests requiring concentration and immediate memory, but because of the small number of patients in this study the findings should be considered tentative.