Geriatric cats: care within the veterinary practice

Pet cats make up a large proportion of the UK's animal population, with over half of these being beyond 8 years of age. Veterinary advancements today mean it is not uncommon for cats to live healthily as geriatrics, 15 years and beyond, providing owners recognise age-related illness.

When considering the ageing cat it is important to understand and recognise the physical changes which may affect its normal behavioural pattern. These can include: a reduction in its normal senses, affecting smell, taste, sight and hearing; reduced immunity causing increased risk of infection, a loss of body condition due to a reduced ability to digest fats and proteins; compromised mobility is often present due to arthritic changes which significantly affects a cat's activity levels. With this in mind it is important to ensure that care within the veterinary practice is adapted accordingly when managing the geriatric cat.

Appetite and nutrition are very important elements of any patient's daily management in the veterinary practice and, as with any feline patient, the geriatric cat is unable to tolerate long periods of inappetance. Prolonged anorexia in the cat can be highly detrimental to its recovery and in some cases may lead to hepatic lipidosis. In order to ensure patients in the veterinary practice are provided with accurate nutritional support it is important to calculate each individual's daily feeding requirement. This should be accurately calculated based on the patient's weight and the kcal provided by the given feed. This allows veterinary staff to understand whether a patient is eating sufficient calories for its size and health status. The elderly cat's desire to eat can be highly influenced by food type, texture, bowl preference and external stimuli and it is not unusual for the cat to choose not to eat if one of these components is deemed unsatisfactory. The majority of hospitalised patients do not have voluntary food intake and this is often very true of the cat and therefore a combination of significant disease and preferential feeding behaviours are often enough to lead to long standing anorexia in the hospitalised feline (Michel, 2001).