Chronic pain in cats is vastly underdiagnosed and undertreated, causing prolonged suffering that is invisible to most owners and veterinarians without systematic assessment.
Chronic pain in cats represents one of the most significant welfare failures in companion animal medicine, not because treatment is unavailable but because pain is so consistently missed. The evolutionary tendency to conceal vulnerability means that cats in chronic pain often appear behavioural normal to casual observation, continuing to eat and interact until pain is severe. Systematic assessment using validated tools, combined with regular veterinary monitoring of older cats, can identify pain earlier and enable earlier intervention. Environmental modification to reduce the need for jumping and climbing can substantially improve quality of life at low cost, supplementing pharmacological management.