Vets hope to help older felines age well

Your cat is as healthy as a 17-year-old cat can be, but she looks like skin and bones. Is there anything wrong with her? The answer is "yes and no."

Whether we're talking about elderly humans, dogs or cats, what's called "frailty syndrome" will eventually occur: a decrease in function reserve that can accompany advancing age. Animals with frailty syndrome lose weight, even if they're eating normally, lose muscle mass, stumble more frequently, walk less and slow down.

"We call them the 'weak and wobbly,' " says veterinarian Dr. Sheilah Robertson, medical director of Lap of Love in Gainesville, Fla. "They're just not as robust."

In partnership with human gerontologists and the University of Florida's Institute on Aging, Robertson has been studying frailty in cats. Thanks to better medicine and longer lifespans, frailty is becoming more of an issue in the care of senior pets.

The senior cat care guidelines issued last year by the American Association of Feline Practitioners address the newly emerging concept of frailty and how it affects aging cats.

One aspect of frailty is immunosenescence: a decreased ability of the immune system to cope with infection or stressors. Cats aren't able to bounce back from illness the way they might have when they were younger.

"If they lose fluids or if they bleed or they're stressed or exposed to infection, they have less of a reserve to call on," Robertson says. "It really affects their ability to combat all the stressors of daily life, so they have higher vulnerability to adverse medical outcomes."

Besides looking at an aging animal's weight, activity level, limb stride, limb strength, or walking ability and speed, veterinarians can also evaluate muscle condition. Loss of muscle mass and strength is common during aging — as you may have discovered, to your dismay.

It's not currently commonplace, but Robertson would like to see veterinarians score a pet's muscle condition when they first see the animal, then track it as the animal ages. That could allow them to intervene earlier, recommending exercise or nutrition changes to help slow the deterioration of muscle mass.

Why is this important? People love their senior pets and want to give them the best care.

"When I do a show of hands at [veterinary] meetings, 40%-plus of every appointment is an older pet now," Robertson says. "Not a puppy, not a new kitten. It's the older pets."

In humans, a frailty index is an accurate predictor of how well a person will rally after a catastrophic event such as a broken hip and the surgery required to repair it.

Currently, veterinarians don't have a frailty index for pets, but veterinarians such as Robertson, Dr. Tony Buffington and Dr. Elizabeth Colleran are working to develop one for cats.

"We are at the beginning of studying what constitutes frailty in cats," Colleran says. "It's been studied in people as sort of a condition for about 15 years now. I think we have a lot to learn from the work that's been done in humans."

One thing that she and Buffington are looking at is the role of environmental enrichment in treating older cats. Humans who are more active and who spend time with friends typically have lower pain scores. The vets hope to discover whether that's true for cats, as well.

For now, Buffington says about feline aging: "Based on the data that I'm aware of in other species, environmental enrichment, a good diet and good medical care are, to my knowledge, the best preventive strategies that we have so far."