Headache and Stroke: A Review

Headache is a common disorder that is usually unaccompanied by focal neurological dysfunction. Less commonly, headache may be associated with central nervous system diseases such as stroke. Headache can occur at the time of stroke onset, but it may also precede or follow the onset of stroke. Nevertheless, headaches associated with stroke have not been sufficiently studied, in part because stroke physicians are primarily focused on diagnosis, risk factors, pathophysiological mechanisms, imaging findings, and treatment (e.g., thrombolysis and endovascular therapy) rather than on headache. In this narrative review, I describe the frequency and characteristics of headache across various stroke subtypes, including ischemic stroke, transient ischemic attack, intracerebral hemorrhage, subarachnoid hemorrhage, and other miscellaneous conditions such as venous infarction, arterial dissection, and reversible cerebral vasoconstriction syndrome.