The impact of medical conditions on feline behavior

What can a cat’s behavior say about that patient’s health? In an interview with dvm360, Christopher Pachel, DVM, DACVB, CABC, discussed various medical conditions in felines—including arthritis and osteoarthritis, and endocrine disorders like hyperthyroidism and diabetes—that can show up as behavioral changes. He also discussed changes in eating habits, irritability and stress thresholds, and what these changes could mean.

Below is the interview transcript:

Christopher Pachel, DVM, DACVB, CABC: [The medical conditions] that we often see can be lumped into a couple of different categories. So, I would say that when we're looking at the urinary tract, for example, some of those invisible conditions like bladder stones or urinary tract infections, we can absolutely see medical conditions resulting from that. We can also see other issues that are stemming from pain or discomfort and that could take on a wide variety of expressions or underlying patterns, whether we're talking about gastrointestinal discomfort, whether we're talking about arthritis or osteoarthritic pain—anything else that causes any degree of discomfort, those are definitely going to show up as behavior changes.

And then, certainly in cats, we also see other hormonal changes, like hyperthyroidism, where we know that those cats are probably going to be a bit more active, and perhaps can be more interested in eating everything in front of them. So we see some of those metabolic changes, but we can also see changes in irritability and stress thresholds as a result. We're casting a wide net to look at all of those things when we're evaluating those caps for underlying medical concerns.

Some of the other concerns that we can see specifically in cats... Quite honestly, we see some of the other endocrine disorders. And again, thinking about other things like diabetes or some of the other things that might have more classic medical concerns, more medical manifestations, and yet, thinking about the impact on overall mood and emotion, those are some of the factors that we can certainly see. And again, I think the overall, overarching theme, is that anything that creates a level of discomfort, agitation, irritability, disrupted sleep or rest, all of those things are likely to show up in some way within the behavioral profile of the animal.