Pain impairs memory and embarrasses columnists

How embarrassing. To the readers who noticed Tuesday's faux-pas, you are of course correct: Nostradamus was French. Rasputin was the crazy Russian. With my head throbbing to distraction I somehow confused the two in brief reference. The worst part is that I did know better, having studied both in college. The second worst part is that this job - thus any mistake (journalists are human too) - is all too public. Mea culpa.

Now that I feel so sheepish, how to turn this lemon to lemonade... What else? Column fodder.

Memory loss is common to headache sufferers, especially the chronic varieties. So if you share this burden, be on better guard than was I this week.

A 2004 Italian study published in the Journal of Headache and Pain evaluated the long- and short-term memories of men and women with chronic headaches. Up to 56 percent showed worse performance on either or both types of memory than did subjects without chronic headaches. Women fared worse than men, and migraine sufferers worse than all others. Researchers suggested this has something to do with neurotransmitter malfunctions in headache patients.

Memory extraction isn't the only thing affected by pain. Chronic pain of any kind also appears to affect memory formation, according to a 2007 Canadian study. Researchers at the University of Alberta studied middle-aged headache clinic patients whose pain had lasted at least six months. Self-defined pain levels ranged from 4 to 10 (on a scale of 1 to 10).

The subjects took verbal and spatial memory tests before and after pain relief procedures or medicines appropriate to their conditions. Two-thirds performed worse on the "before" tests, especially in spatial memories. Possible influences from other factors such as sleep issues and psychological problems were eliminated.

"Our findings suggest that pain may disrupt the maintenance of the memory trace that is required to hold information for processing and to later retain it for storage in longer-term memory stores," wrote the lead researcher.

The Italian study built upon another in the 1990s, again in Italy, which explored the link between memory impairment and headaches. One hundred headache patients were compared to a control group, with significant and sometimes, progressive, differences between the two groups. This study subdivided patients by headache type and treatment. Still the message was the same as confirmed by the later studies: Headaches impair memory recall, especially when the pain is chronic.

So is there a lesson in all of this? Two, perhaps. When your head feels like Thor is wielding his hammer from within it, call in sick. If that's not possible, triple check even the simplest elements of the workday. Then check again.

Sholeh Patrick is a columnist for the Hagadone News Network now in day four of this *%!@ headache. Contact her with any further screw-ups at [email protected].