Alec Mian, PhD, CEO Stephen Donoghue, PhD, VP Clinical Development Curelator Inc. Cambridge, MA
Curelator Headache is a transformational digital tool that allows individuals to track and discover the myriad factors that are associated with: a) increasing; b) decreasing; or, c) have no effect on their risk of migraine headaches. The Company collaborated with some of the world’ s leading migraine neurologists to develop a comprehensive list of migraine triggers and symptoms, which were translated visually into a series of pictorial icons titled, Visual Migraine Language( VML)( Figure 1). VML factors and symptoms must be tracked daily for 45 to 90 days before an individual’ s maps can be generated, based on the analysis of their data.
An example of an anonymous individual user’ s results – delivered in the format of three sets of maps: Trigger, Protector, and No Association Maps – are presented in Figure 2. Users also receive a Personal Summary Report to share with their physician. All of this information is designed to help users experiment with behavior modifications, with the goal of reducing the number and severity of their migraine attacks.
Curelator Headache / National Headache Foundation Study: What do migraine triggers & protectors of 150 individuals look like?
In a recent collaboration with the National Headache Foundation( NHF), Curelator Headache recruited migraineurs to test the clinical utility of its digital platform. The NHF with their commitment to furthering clinical understanding of migraine was a perfect partner to recruit migraineurs who were likely to be interested in using such a tool.
The goal was to scientifically determine some of the conditions and factors that may trigger or protect an individual from a migraine headache attack. After 90 days of data were entered, personalized results were generated for 150 individuals, including NHF members across the U. S., as well as some individuals in the United Kingdom. Surprisingly, these results illustrate that virtually every migraineur is different – as shown visually in the interactive Curelator Headache Population Trigger Map.
This discovery has immediate therapeutic implications.
22 HeadWise ® | Volume 5, Issue 1 • 2015