AAN 2026 | Transitioning pediatric to adult headache care: structured pathways and policy advances

Thank you so much. I could not be happier about this question. I am very honored to be a graduate from the Palatucci program of American Academy of Neurology and my project was developing the list and checklist which could help to transition from childhood to adult for kids who have migraine. And since that time, I got very involved in that also because I was seeing kids which is one in 11 kids have migraines and they deserve wonderful headache care all the way through to adulthood. And having a very good checklist and knowing policy about how to transfer care from pediatric to adult, how to communicate and work with other specialties, with primary care included, of course. I’m co-chair for the primary care first contact program with our American Headache Society. And we have amazing materials there. And with the American Academy of Neurology, we keep moving forward. And the International Headache Society, with participation of multiple headache specialists all around the world, and I saw Dr Hirsch from the United States on the paper, they created beautiful guidelines for transitioning from pediatric to adult headache care. And one of the questions which they answered in the Journal of Cephalalgia was, what age do we need to start preparing? I thought it was excellent. So they actually said that at a certain age, we already start thinking about it. We start creating a plan. We start thinking about, okay, so we did those tests. We tried this medication. We will make sure that we provide this wonderful information, very important for the future treatment to the future clinicians. And working with parents and kids and them, for example, would be different clinics. So we had at the university for a while, we had a clinic when a person would go when the teenagers were transitioning. And this session at the American Academy of Neurology will be with Dr Annika Ehrlich. And she’s our president of AHDE, which I’m on the board of. And also we’re going to talk about advocacy for kids as I’m a vice chair for BrainPAC with the American Academy of Neurology. And one of the points I want to bring is results of this advocacy. When we were able to include 504 in the management of kids with migraines. So in the past, before this advocacy, migraines were not included in conditions covered by 504 for school kids that they could get accommodations in school and now it’s very helpful for kids when they need they can have conditions which are more friendly for migraines including even light in the room so it’s sometimes they just need to be in the room with less light or maybe they need to take a break during the busy school day in some quiet place so now they can have it so they can have these peaceful nice conditions for a little bit hopefully get better with that or more with more plan from the clinician but now it can be done so I’m very happy for our kids and their parents and all of us to celebrate a lot of achievements in this time when they need help so they succeed in life.

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