Canine And Feline Geriatrics.Pdf

Canine and Feline Geriatrics

Mike Davies

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Canine and Feline Geriatrics

Mike Davies

CONTENTS
Preface Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 An Introduction To Geriatric Veterinary Medicine The Cardiovascular System The Nervous System The Special Senses Urinary Tract Neoplasia In Old Age NutritionIn Older Animals Anaesthesia And Surgery In Geriatric Patients Radiology In Geriatric Patients 3 4 18 61 79 87 103 127 137 154 159 173

Chapter 10 Geriatric Screening Programmes Photographic plates

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Canine and Feline Geriatrics
PREFACE

Mike Davies

At the time of writing this book the study of geriatrics as a veterinary discipline is very much inits infancy. My interest in the subject is obviously becoming more acute as I work through my own midlife crises and see old age looming on the nottoo-distant horizon, but the main stimulus for me to write this book came from Dr J. Mosier (USA), a pioneer of the study of geriatrics in veterinary medicine, and Dr Mary Harrington, a human geriatrician in London - both of whom took part in aSymposium on Geriatric Veterinary Medicine which I organised in London in 1988. In researching for this book I was disappointed at the relative lack of published work on many aspects of geriatrics in veterinary medicine. However I am pleased to say that there is now a considerable amount of work going on - particularly in the areas of progressive renal disease and cognitive disorders. There are inherentdangers in extrapolating too much from experimental studies and from studies conducted in different species, nevertheless there are many useful comparative correlations to be drawn from veterinary species to humans and vice versa. Much work needs to be done to obtain base information about geriatric veterinary patients and in the meantime it would be helpful to the develof veterinary geriatricmedicine if the non-sensitive research data from studies in cats and dogs currently held by many pharmaceutical companies and other institutions could be made available. I have tried to draw together relevant information from the published (and unpublished) works of many researchers in various fields and I wish to thank them for documenting their subjects so well. I have tried to make sense out of theinformation available and to address some of the main issues in geriatric medicine to assist clinicians in first opinion practice. I have avoided in-depth coverage of some topics such as arthritis which perhaps should be in a book on geriatrics, but these are well documented in other publications. At times I have been deliberately controversial and I look forward to receiving correspondence fromcolleagues with alternative views! I have absolutely no doubt that this book will need to be totally revised within the next few years but in the meantime I hope that it will stimulate some of my colleagues to look further at this interesting group of patients which present such a clinical challenge, and I hope that it may lead to an improvement in the future care and management of geriatricveterinary patients.

Mike Davies BVetMed CertVR CertSAO FRCVS Dorset, March 1996
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Canine and Feline Geriatrics
Chapter 1

Mike Davies

AN INTRODUCTION TO GERIATRIC VETERINARY MEDICINE
1.1 INTRODUCTION 1.2 THE DEMOGRAPHICS OF GERIATRIC CATS AND DOGS 1.3 DEFINING THE TERM 'GERIATRIC' 1.4 AGEING CHANGES 1.5 GERIATRIC DISEASES REFERENCES AND FURTHER READINGLibrary of veterinary practice

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Canine and Feline Geriatrics

Mike Davies

1.1 INTRODUCTION
Great advances have been made in human geriatric medicine over the past 20 years. Old people are now regarded as a separate clinical group from the young adult population, and the development of specialisation in 'geriatrics' has increased our knowledge of many of the diseases of the elderly...