Key clinical point: Meta-analysis demonstrated lower general cognitive and language functions in patients with migraine, along with a significant association between migraine and risk for all-cause dementia.
Major finding: General cognitive (standard mean difference [SMD] −0.40; 95% CI −0.66 to −0.15) and language (SMD −0.14; 95% CI −0.27 to −0.00) functions were lower in the group of participants with vs without migraine, and no significant between-group differences were observed for visuospatial, attention, executive, and memory functions . Moreover, migraine was significantly associated with the risk for dementia (odds ratio/relative risk 1.30; 95% CI 1.11-1.52).
Study details: Findings are from a meta-analysis of 22 studies (including 3295 patients with migraine) that assessed cognitive function and 11 studies (including 12,871 patients with dementia, 56,365 participants without dementia, 47,942 patients with migraine, and 190,024 healthy controls) that assessed the association between migraine and risk for dementia.
Disclosures: This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China. The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
Source: Gu L et al. Association between migraine and cognitive impairment. J Headache Pain. 2022;23:88 (Jul 26). Doi: 10.1186/s10194-022-01462-4