Migraine costs business 1´838 million euros a year

Joan Collins THE total cost of migraine attacks in Spain, in terms of lost working days, is 1'838 million euros per year. This figure is calculated by adding days off caused by migraine to the loss of productivity by workers continuing to work while suffering a migraine. This works out at 730 euros per person suffering from migraine, according to a study done by the Plan of Action in the Fight Against Migraine (PALM). This affliction, which affects more women than men, last year caused an average absenteeism of 3.9 percent among men and 8.3 percent among women. Some 38 percent of the patients who suffer from migraine have to stop work and lie down when they have a migraine attack. The study reveals that some 22 percent of the patients which could potentially suffer this affliction do not go to the doctor, but take over the counter remedies, “with all the negative consequences” which this could bring, according to the head of the Area of Neuropsychiatry of the MSD España medical department, Doctor Artuor Lopez Gil, a specialist in Clinical Pharmacology. He warned that the improper use of some medicines could make the migraine chronic. Other patients start treatment and then abandon it when they feel better, 40 percent of them saying that they are “completely cured”, according to PALM, although 60 percent of these say they are not well informed about the affliction. Some 12 percent of Spanish adults between 18 and 65 years old could suffer migraine. It is a neurological disease classified by the World Health Organisation as one of the most incapacitating. According to a poll done by the PALM Programme (declared by the Spanish Ministry of Health to be of interest) among 5'668 people, 712 said they probably suffered from migraine, and some 80.02 percent said that they thought that migraine seriously damages quality of life for those who suffer it. “At last we have a chance to change things”, said Lopez Gil, explaining that the incorporation of women into the workplace had made it easier to stimulate “knowledge and interest” in this disease, as the most typical patient is a young working woman, who previously “didn't go out of the house”. The study also carries a poll about the expectations of sufferers from new medicines. The main things they wanted were that the medicine should act rapidly, have a long lasting effect, be 100 percent effective, without side effects, cheap, and easy to take, in that order of preference.