How to Assess the Severity of Your Migraine Headache?

After diagnosis of migraine is made, using the diagnostic criteria of the International Headache Society, the next important aspect is to assess the severity of the disease and the disability it is causing to the patient, which can guide the treating physician about to manage the disease well.

For assessment of severity of the disease and the disability, the migraine headache is causing to the patient is usually done with the help of the Migraine Disability Assessment Score or MIDAS, a well-validated, easy-to-use tool for this purpose.

Migraine Headaches

The Migraine Disability Assessment Score is the most commonly and widely used tool (used by doctors all over the globe) to assess the severity of migraine headache and the same tool can also be used to find out the degree of disability it is causing to the patient for day-to-day activity.

Using the Migraine Disability Assessment Score the severity the migraine headache is causing to the patient can be assessed. In the MIDAS tool a set of 5 simple questions and additional 2 questions are asked to the patient. The first 5 questions are used for scoring. The score is calculated by the number of days a patient has suffered in last 3 months and the total days are added together to get the score.

[box type=”note”]If a patient suffer from more than 1 day continuously the total number is taken instead of score of one (e.g. if a patient suffer for 3 days continuously, a score of 3 is given instead of 1).[/box]

The MIDAS Questionnaire:

1. In the last 3 months how many days did you miss school or work because of your headaches? ——–no. of days.
2. In the last 3 months how many days was your productivity reduced by half or more because of you headaches? Exclude the days of question number 1. ———no. of days.
3. In the last 3 months how many days you did not do household works because of headache? ——–no. of days.
4. In the last 3 months how many days your productivity in household work reduced by half or more due to your headaches? Exclude the days of question number 3, when you did not do household work. ——–no. of days.
5. In the last 3 months how many days did you miss family, social or leisure activities because of your headaches? ——–no. of days.

Additional MIDAS Questionnaire:

• In the last 3 months how many days did you have a headache? if headache was more than 1 day continuously, count each day. ———
• How painful were these headaches, on a scale of 0-10, with 0 for no pain and 10 for severe most pain one can have. ———–

Disability Assessment Score for Migraine:

• Grade-I – Score of 0-5, (minimal or infrequent disability)
• Grade-II – Score of 6-10 (mild or less frequent disability)
• Grade-III– Score of 11-20 (moderate disability)
• Grade IV– Score of more than 20 (severe disability).

Instructions:

Answer the above questionnaire about all types of headaches (including migraine and non migraine type of headaches) you have had in the last 3 months.

Author bio:

This is a guest post by Jupitor Chakma who blogs on health topics in his Health Blog and Online Health Site. Visit these blogs for regular health updates.