Mindfulness Therapy for Chronic Migraine

The aim is to assess the efficacy of adding on a Mindfulness-based therapy to pharmacological prophylaxis (experimental group: pharmacological prophylaxis + Mindfulness) against pharmacological prophylaxis only (control group) on the reduction of monthly headaches frequency (primary endpoint), symptomatic medications intake, inflammatory pattern, depression, anxiety, cutaneous allodynia, improving disability and quality of life (secondary endpoints). Moreover, other aims are to assess whether adding on Mindfulness-based therapy is also associated to a superior improvement of neuroimaging pattern among patients prescribed neuromodulators or antidepressants and to assess the cost-efficacy of adding on a Mindfulness-based therapy to pharmacological prophylaxis. Mindfulness will be provided in small groups (5-7 patients each) by specifically trained therapists. The treatment consists in six 45 minutes weekly sessions in which one will work on meditation, acceptance and awareness. The program of control group will consist in education of patients, followed by pharmacological prophylaxis. Prophylaxis is prescribed based on patients' profile, such as previous failures, contraindications and so on by a neurologist with expertise in headache treatments. We expect that adding-on Mindfulness will determine a wider reduction of headaches frequency and improvement of secondary endpoints, and that disease cost reduction will support the cost-efficacy of Mindfulness. The study will be a Phase III; randomized, Open-Label; Monocentric study. Patients will be enrolled to detect a 20% difference between the two groups on the primary outcome (50% or more of headache reduction by 12 months). For each medication type and research arm 20 patients will be selected: thus 80 patients will be enrolled for neuroradiological investigation.