Conscious Choice: Pet Dementia

Tips to Help Your Animal
Age More Gently

• Add more activities. Just because your animal looks gray doesn’t mean he/she doesn’t want to participate in life. Enrichment activities may be somewhat different or set at a lower pace than what the dog or cat used to do. Moderate exercise remains extremely useful. As Milani said, you don’t want “the circuits to shut down.”

• Pamper your older pet. For instance, feed him or her special treats within reason. Not grocery store pet foods, but perhaps more real meat and vegetables or some new healthy snacks. There are lots of recipes, too, to make attractive and tasty snacks, which can cost less than store-bought treats.

• Add supplements to the diet. Vitamins and antioxidants may be helpful, but check first with a holistic veterinarian.

• Avoid stress. This is always important, but even more so for the aging critter. A new pup or other big changes may just be too much for an older dog.

• Touching your old friend—massage or, if you know it, the Tellington TTouch—can help keep your animal companion comfortable and feeling loved and included. Reiki also reportedly has made some older animals more comfortable.

• Rethink vaccines. Check with your vet if your old dog or cat truly needs vaccines. Consider titering—having blood tests done to determine need —instead. Vaccinations are often traumatic and can even be dangerous in some cases.

• Modify feeding and elimination schedules. Take your dog out more often to eliminate and don’t rely on “signaling behaviors.”

• Consider a new bed and/or a more comfortable arrangement of furniture to accommodate a lame, deaf or blind animal. Perhaps you need to elevate the feeding dishes.

• Get an overall check-up when your animal is middle-aged. For most dogs, this is seven or eight. For cats, this will be a few years later, as they have longer lifespans.

— Deborah Straw

August 2006

Pet Dementia

Is Your Older Dog or Cat
Starting to Act Strange?

By Deborah Straw

Franky has sleep problems, often stares into space at nothing and some days doesn’t want to eat or go to the bathroom.

Franky is 21 years old, which may seem young to be showing symptoms of dementia. That is, until you consider that Franky is a cat and his age in human years is close to 100.

His symptoms persist despite the fact that Franky, an indoor dweller in a northern Vermont home, lives a pampered life. His human companion has gone out of her way to feed him what he wants to eat—increasingly, cooked chicken in tiny pieces and real bacon bits. She has re-arranged furniture so it is more accessible. Still, although he doesn’t appear to be in any physical pain, on some days he just howls at the walls.

There’s a good chance Franky is suffering from canine and feline cognitive disorders, real conditions studied by researchers just as Alzheimer’s and other cognitive diseases are studied in humans. Not surprisingly, the symptoms are similar.

Symptoms can begin to appear after the age of eight for dogs and around 11 or 12 years for cats, according to Vint Virga, DVM, a veterinarian in New York City. Apart from changes in sleep and eating and elimination patterns, Virga said, dogs can start to roam at night and cats may take on new fears. He outlined his findings in the article, “Geriatric Medicine—Dementia: Behavioral Changes in the Aging Dog and Cat,” available for purchase at iknowledgenow.com.

“Physical changes in the brain are similar to changes in people with Alzheimer’s disease,” said Melissa Bain, a veterinarian and researcher at the University of California, Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, where a study tracked 119 dogs over the age of 11 years old between 1997 and 1999.

“We are looking at the effects of anti-oxidants on slowing the decline/reversing the decline in dogs.”

The American Veterinary Medical Association estimates that the U.S. currently has more than 7.3 million dogs aged 11 or older. As the numbers of older domestic animals increase, veterinarians predict more age-related brain problems in pets, similar to the rise in Alzheimer’s disease in people.

A loss of smell connected to cognitive changes is being studied by veterinarian Karen Overall at the University of Pennsylvania.

And, as Myrna Milani, a New Hampshire-based veterinarian who specializes in the human-animal bond, explained, “The brain works on a use-it-or-lose principle and if there’s little available in an environment to stimulate an animal naturally, it seems reasonable that those circuits would shut down.”

While animals may live months or years with cognitive dysfunction, this condition can become deadly for a different reason, according David S. Bruyette, DVM, of West Los Angeles Veterinary Medical Group. “Most commonly (cognitive dysfunction) becomes a fatal disorder because the bond between the client and the pet has been broken. It’s not the same pet anymore. The owner just gets frustrated.”

And then the pet goes to the shelter to be euthanized.

If they are lucky, some elderly pets may end up at a facility like Howling Success, a 25-year-old shelter in Virginia run by Rita Reynolds. Reynolds, who is on the cutting edge in the field of animal hospice, said she has seen symptoms of canine and feline cognitive dysfunction in older animals, such as Zooey, a dog who is at least 17.

“She is quite spacey, sleeps a lot, but walks most of the night. I have to be up with her more and more, just to make sure she doesn’t hurt herself or get stuck under a chair,” said Reynolds.

Elderly dogs especially are prone to suffer from “sundowning” or “Sundown Syndrome.” However, the condition can be minimized, in humans, by providing more natural light according to Joanne Koenig Coste, author of Learning to Speak Alzheimer’s. This has not yet been tried in dogs.

Other options include improved nutrition. Bain said some dog food manufacturers are developing foods to combat signs of cognitive dysfunction by developing foods that are fortified with extra antioxidants.

Pfizer makes Anipryl (l-deprenyl) for treatment of canine cognitive dysfunction syndrome. But some vets urge caution because certain medications can be expensive and not be effective in some cases.

One of those medications is selegiline (Anipryl Rx).

“Our experience has been pretty variable with this medication but it doesn’t appear to be harmful,” wrote veterinarian Mike Richards, DVM, for Vetinfo Digest. “It is expensive but some dogs really seem to improve a lot in their overall attitude when it is used.”

The Pfizer webpage lists these as possible drug side effects: “In studies, the common side effects were vomiting, diarrhea or changes in behavior. Most side effects were mild to moderate.” For more information, on this drug, visit vetinfo.com.

Deborah Straw is the author of The Healthy Pet Manual: A Guide to the Prevention and Treatment of Cancer.

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August 2006

Pet Dementia

Is Your Older Dog or CatStarting to Act Strange?

By Deborah Straw

Is Your Older Dog or Cat
Starting to Act Strange?