Jul

Migraine Headaches and Adolescents

Does your teenager suffer from migraines? This is a more common occurance than you might think. As a result, your son or daughter likely has an uphill battle to maintain good grades. A recent statistic shows that a 5 percent drop in high school GPA, a 5 percent drop in the likelihood of graduating high school and a 15 percent reduction in the likelihood that he or she will even be able to go to college. There are a number of reasons why this happens. Migraines are the cause of up to 40 percent reduction in excused absences from school, also difficulty paying attention in class as well as failing to complete homework on time or at all. A public policy professor at American University in Washington, D.C., by the name of Joseph Sabia, and University of Colorado at Denver economics professor, Daniel Rees have looked at data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Both of these professors said that teens who had nonmigraine headaches didn’t suffer the same drops in academic performance as the ones who had migraines. This happened to be the first study of its kind to examine the effect of migraine headaches on adolescents and their ability to achievement academic goals. Sabia and Rees conducted the study by analyzing migraine experiences and high school grades of 214 siblings from 105 families. They obtained information on high school completion and college attendance from 280 siblings belonging to 137 families, according to the news release.