Recognizing Signs of Geriatric Pain in Cats

In this video, Dr. Janice Huntingford discusses the importance of pain management in geriatric cats, rather than dismissing the symptoms as signs of aging.

Janice Huntingford, DVM, DACVSMR, CVA, CVPP, CCRT, CAVCA: The most common challenges that veterinarians face with geriatric pain management is the fact that the clients frequently do not recognize that their animals are in pain. They figure that being a geriatric is simply getting old, and that many of the pain signs that they show are from old age, not from pain.

The second thing is, particularly with cats, cats show very very strange pain signs, as far as people are concerned. If you have a cat that does not like to be petted, well some people think that’s just the cat’s personality. Sometimes it isn’t, sometimes it’s pain. Or as the pets get older, they stop doing things that they normally had been doing. For example, I had a client who told me that her cat finally learned not to jump up on the counter, and she thought that was great, by the age of 10, and I said, “that’s not so great, that means that this cat’s painful.”