title: Oliver Sacks and migraine.
abstract: Background Oliver Sacks (1933-2015) published a large number of books on a variety of neurological topics. Of these, numerous copies have been sold and they probably serve as the only or main source of information on neurological diseases for many persons without a medical background. His first book was on migraine and in his subsequent books many descriptions of migraine can be found, mainly those of auras. Methods We explored the descriptions of migraine in Sacks' work in order to evaluate the image of migraine offered to the readers. Conclusion Oliver Sacks gave wonderful descriptions of migraine auras, but hardly any of migraine headache. Furthermore, he described rare auras such as 'amusia' and olfactory auras. Overall, this makes his descriptions of migraine not very useful to serve as medical information for laypersons. Oliver Sacks, however, wrote great literature.
authors.affiliation: 1 Department of Neurology, Alrijne Hospital, Leiderdorp, The Netherlands.|2 Department of Neurology, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Joost
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Haan
authors.affiliation: 3 Department of Medical Psychology, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Ad A
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Kaptein
authors.affiliation: 4 Department of Neurology, St Lucas Andreas Hospital, Amsterdam and Zaans Medisch Centrum, Zaandam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Bastiaan C
authors.initials: BC
authors.lastname: Ter Meulen
mesh_terms: D005197:Famous Persons; D049673:History, 20th Century; D049674:History, 21st Century; D006801:Humans; D020325:Migraine with Aura / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000266:history* / Q000523:psychology; D000072141:Neurologists / Q000266:history*; D066291:Psychiatry in Literature
keywords: Oliver Sacks; aura; images of illness; migraine; narrative review