Mary Allen
According to recent findings, significantly more cats suffer from painful chronic joint diseases than previously thought. However, with the right treatment, many osteoarthritis sufferers can regain a good quality of life.
What is Osteoarthritis? What is Arthritis?
Arthrosis (also osteoarthrosis) is the term used to describe signs of wear and tear on joints due to chronic joint diseases. In arthritic joints, there is damage to the articular cartilage, excessive bone tissue, a thickened joint capsule, and changes in the synovial fluid. These degenerative changes, which are an expression of the body’s failed attempts at repair, limit the functionality of the joint and lead to joint pain.
Arthritis is an inflammation of the joints (acute or chronic) that often leads to permanent damage to joint structures, i.e. osteoarthritis. Arthritis can have a wide variety of causes, for example, a bacterial infection can trigger arthritis (e.g. Lyme disease) or an immune disease (e.g. rheumatism). However, a particularly common cause of arthritis is cartilage damage, because the cartilage components that are released are wrongly classified as foreign substances by the immune system and are fought with the help of an inflammatory reaction.
As a result of the cartilage damage in osteoarthritis, flare-ups of arthritis occur again and again, which further destroy the affected joint. This creates a vicious circle of osteoarthritis, arthritis, and even more osteoarthritis…
In the English-speaking world, arthrosis is called osteoarthritis (OA).
How Common is Osteoarthritis in Cats?
Unfortunately, osteoarthritis is much more common in cats than previously thought. Cats are masters at hiding pain and only show that something is wrong when they have massive joint problems. However, if you x-ray the joints of older cats, you will often experience a nasty surprise: nine out of ten cats over the age of twelve show signs of arthrosis in the x-ray, often in several joints including the spine. Only a fraction of these cats actually shows lameness.
Since our domestic cats are getting older and arthrosis is a sign of wear and tear, the number of cases of arthrosis in cats that require treatment is also increasing.
What Causes Osteoarthritis in Cats?
Osteoarthritis usually results from excessive stress on the joints, which damages the cartilage. This can be an absolute overload due to the effects of strong forces, or a relative overload if the cartilage is already damaged.
In dogs, the overloading of the joint cartilage is often due to joint malpositions, special cartilage diseases or accidents (traumas) with cartilage injuries (= secondary arthrosis), while in cats no such cause can usually be found (= primary arthrosis).
So anything that puts a lot of stress on the joints can promote the development of osteoarthritis, especially if the stress is repetitive (for example, if your cat jumps from a great height every day).
Of course, obesity also plays a role as a permanent burden, and an increasingly important one, as our cat population is not only getting older but also getting fatter.
The risk of arthrosis increases with age because the articular cartilage of older animals is less elastic and less resilient.
What does Osteoarthritis Mean for My Cat?
What arthrosis means for your cat is difficult to say in individual cases, because we know from humans that not every arthrosis that is visible on an X-ray actually causes pain and that a slight restriction in movement is often not noticed at all. However, osteoarthritis is a progressive disease and at a certain level of damage, an arthritic joint will inevitably cause pain.
So you have to expect your cat to be in pain from osteoarthritis even if she isn’t limping, limping, or lame.
Much of what we commonly blame on “old age”, such as a lack of movement or a stiffer gait, is actually an expression of pain and restricted movement due to arthrosis. Depending on the weather, this pain is sometimes more or less noticeable. Depending on the severity of the osteoarthritis, it may only hurt with some movements or even when the cat is resting. Chronic pain severely limits your cat’s quality of life.
The limitations in movement caused by osteoarthritis can prevent a cat from displaying its normal social behaviors, such as grooming itself, catching mice, or asserting its status in a cat group.