New research reveals kid’s headaches aren’t generally due to visual problems

Eye problems are widely assumed to be the major reason for frequent headaches in kids.  When a child reports recurring headache during their school work, parents assume that their child is suffering from a visual problem or needs a vision correction, consequently, they request that their doctors refer their child for an eye exam. However, a new retrospective review of the medical records of 158 children below the age of 18 who were observed for frequent headaches at the ophthalmology clinic reveals that visual problems are seldom the cause of recurring headaches in children, even if the regular headache seems to occur when the child is performing visual activities or doing academic work.

The research was presented in November, 2012 by a team of Pediatric Ophthalmologists at Albany Medical Center in New York, at the American Academy of Ophthalmology annual meeting in Chicago.

Researchers concluded, even though 14% of the children accounted that their headaches occurred while doing visual tasks such as school home work and around 9% reported visual symptoms associated with their headaches, visual problem did not appear to be the prime reason or a factor in any of these cases. In addition, follow up reports from parents validated the research findings.  Parents indicated that headaches improved in 76.4% of all children, including those who did not get vision correction as well as those who did. Moreover, new prescriptions did not make it more probable that the children's headaches would reduce. 

During this research, it was observed that about 30% of the children had visual conditions that went beyond the need for correction in vision. These conditions included strabismus, amblyopia and other more serious situations. Though the research was a retrospective study, Pediatric Ophthalmologists were not able to make connections between these factors and the cause of headache.

Dr. Zachary Roth, who led the research team, commented, “We hope our study will help reassure parents that, in most cases, their children’s headaches are not related to vision or eye problems, and that most headaches will clear up in time.”

However, optometry research does not sound logical for optometrists who often treat children  with visual issues.  Professor of pediatrics/binocular vision at Illinois College of Optometry in Chicago, Dominick Maino, suggests that the study did not consider the binocular vision system beyond strabismus and ignored assessment of accommodation. This is unfortunate, according to Dr. Miano, because most of the research published in this area suggests that accommodation plays an important role in headaches experienced by patients.

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