Cats are living longer due to improved nutrition and veterinary care. Ensuring that extended lifespans translate to good quality of life requires proactive senior care and pain management.
The welfare of senior cats is compromised by a fundamental mismatch between how cats evolved to express pain and what their owners can detect. Cats evolved as both predator and prey — showing vulnerability is dangerous, so they mask discomfort until it is severe. The result is that millions of senior cats live with significant arthritis pain, dental disease, or chronic disease-related discomfort that owners attribute to "slowing down with age." This is not normal aging — it is unmanaged pain. Modern veterinary medicine offers effective pain management for most senior cat conditions: NSAIDs for arthritis (with appropriate renal monitoring), gabapentin for neuropathic pain, medicated diets for kidney disease, and antihypertensive medication for blood pressure. The difference between a well-managed senior cat and an unmanaged one is a difference in daily quality of life that owners may not appreciate until effective treatment reveals how much their cat was suffering.