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1 out of 3 salaried Koreans suffers from chronic headache

1 out of 3 salaried Koreans suffers from chronic headache

Posted January. 23, 2017 07:12,   

Updated January. 23, 2017 07:19

한국어

The number of Koreans with chronic pain in the head has increased sharply. One of three salaried workers on average is exposed to the risk of chronic headache due to stress, an analysis found.

The Dong-A Ilbo, the National Health Insurance Service, and the Korean Headache Society jointly conducted analysis of major primary headache patients in Korea from 2006 to 2015. The analysis found the number of migraine patients increased from 398,492 to 507,268, that of patients with tension type headache rose from 366,545 to 409,700, and that of cluster headache patients increased from 5,259 to 10,944, as the number of patients suffering from major headaches soared by 30 percent from 770,029 to 927,212 during the period.

“Migraine,” which frequently causes pain in the brain and discomfort in the stomach, “tension type headache’ due to stress, and “cluster headache,” which occurs due to abnormality on the hypothalamus of the brain, are chronic headaches that anyone can suffer, and belong to ‘primary headache.” Secondary headaches are headaches caused by various diseases including cerebral hemorrhage.

By age, migraine patients in their 50s (103,579 as of 2015) accounted for the largest portion of all migraine patients, followed by those in their 40s (102,268), 30s (80,139명), 60s (62,074), and 20s (57,455). Patients with tension type headache and cluster headache in their 50s and 40s also outnumbered other age groups as well. By region, migraine patients concentrated in the Greater Seoul region and metropolitan cities including Gyeonggi Province (119,420), Seoul (88,733) and Busan (32,215).

In a survey of 905 salaried workers by the Korean Headache Society on Jan. 10-15, 29.3 percent of respondents said that they experience headache once to three times per week.

“Many people think headache lightly and try to endure by taking painkillers, but it could potentially develop into ‘hard-to-cure headache,’” said Kim Byeong-geon, chairman of the Korea Headache Society and professor of neurology at EulJi University.



Youn-Jong Kim zozo@donga.com