Etiological classification of chronic headache in children and their electroencephalographic features.

Classification and electroencephalographic studies were based on 215 children with chronic headache ranged in age from 3 to 16 years (9.53 +/- 2.86 years old) who were referred to the Pediatric Neurology Clinics of National Taiwan University Hospital due to chronic or severe headache from December 1989 to December 1992. The most common type of headache was seizure headache which constituted 27.0% of all these cases. Migraine headache accounted for 22.3%. The abnormal and borderline electroencephalogram (EEG) rate in seizure headache patients were 75.9% and 24.1% respectively. Comparing the results of migraine patients were 8.3% and 8.3% respectively. Seven cases have been diagnosed as orthostatic dysregulation clinically. All of them presented normal EEG. The response of seizure headache to anticonvulsants was good in the patients with abnormal (87.9%) and borderline EEG (55.6%). We conclude that seizure headache is not uncommon in children and it responses good to anticonvulsants.