Senility - dementia - CDS in dogs and cats - Pet podcast #20 - Transcription

Senility and Dementia in Cats and Dogs

Please note that this is an audio transcription of our pet podcasts. Grammar and punctuation may not be perfect.

[Intro Music]

Marko: So, welcome back to the show everyone. My name is Marko and today is June 29, 2007. It's hard to believe, but we've actually reached 20 episodes. I don't know of too many things that I like to do that I've done 20 times, so it's quite a treat that we actually made it to 20. I have absolutely no intention of stopping, so I hope you'll continue to listen and enjoy the show. I'd like to thank some of the members that commented on last week's show with our interview with Dr. Lee where we talked about ticks and fleas. Some of those members that posted on the board are filox, hazelrunpack, and pags. I totally appreciate their comments. I also received a bunch of comments by email, but I'm not sure they wanted their names known, so thank you so much for all the comments. We love comments and please continue to give them. They provide the best source of feedback. You can comment of course on the blog. Just go to pets.ca/blog. You could, as you have been doing, commenting in the bulletin board. Just make your way to the forum on pets.ca and comment there or you could just send me an email as always, pets.ca ( A t) gmail.com. We'd love to get more suggestions actually. If you're thinking we should be covering a certain subject or if you'd like to know more about a subject, it would be our pleasure to cover it for you.

Today's episode is another interview with Dr. Lee who is really, really gracious with his time and we totally appreciate having him. For this show, we're actually going to talk about senility and dementia, which I've learned now is covered by the term CDS, cognitive dysfunction syndrome, and we're going to talk about it for both cats and dogs. Let's just get right into it now.

So, I would like very much to introduce Dr. Lee again this week. Dr. Lee was with us last week where he discussed fleas and ticks with us and it was quite an excellent podcast. Thanks so much. This week, we are actually going to cover quickly the topic of senility and dementia in cats and dogs as our pets age. So, I'd like very much to welcome again Dr. Lee. Hi, Dr. Lee. Thanks again for doing this.

Dr. Christopher Lee: Hi. Thanks for having me.

Marko: Pleasure, pleasure. So, I thought we'd get right into it. So many of us have older pets these days or if they're not older now, they will get older. What should we look for? What are the signs of senility and dementia? What happens to pets as they age?

Dr. Christopher Lee: That is a common problem that we do see in dogs and cats. What we refer to it as is CDS or cognitive dysfunction syndrome. What happens to the brain with dogs and cats as they age, there are a number of things that are noted. General atrophy of the brain is seen with age. The brain can actually decrease in both size and weight. The number of neurons decreases. Occasionally, blood flow will decrease due to a variety of other problems that may be going on. Also, there have been a couple of studies that showed that there is a deposition of a protein called amyloid. This has been shown to have very similar patterns of distribution as the amyloid plaque that are seen in humans with Alzheimer's, so there may be a link to dogs and cats actually getting an Alzheimer-like syndrome. With these, what we've seen when you combine all these changes together, you get the signs of CDS or cognitive dysfunction syndrome. The signs that are seen we'll see confusion. The pets perhaps are getting lost, wander about, sometimes vocalize. They'll cry out a little bit more. We will see sometimes memory loss, a common sign that we are presented with everyday, the older dog or cat who starts inappropriately urinating or defecating inside of the house, some of the dogs and cats will not respond to commands as well as before, and then just the general decrease in both interaction and activity level that we see with regard to other pets, humans or events, just a general decrease in their enjoyment and interaction of life.

Marko: I know sometimes that certain pet owners, they might confuse senility with other things. Can you go into that a little bit? Anytime their pet doesn't react as they used to, they may think, "Oh, my dog is senile," or "Oh, my cat is senile or just getting old," but often that's not the case. Often, signs can be mistaken. Is that right?

Dr. Christopher Lee: Yes. With CDS, what will happen is the onset is very slow. Many times, what we will see is when the times become of enough magnitude that they come in to see their veterinarian. A lot of times, not only is there senility present, but we will see other problems going on as well. Occasionally, we will see an older dog who comes in for the signs like inappropriate urination/defecation that it's not a mental dysfunction, but actually some type of true metabolic disease. Some of the diseases that we will see, which will commonly come in as senility or CDS look alike will be things like arthritis, cataracts, other visual problems, hearing loss, dental pain, urinary tract problem, and other problems like liver disease. Many times when we think our pets are being senile, perhaps there are other issues going on that need to be addressed.

Marko: That's such an important point actually. It almost seems so obvious when you say it, but if a dog has cataracts or a cat has cataracts for that matter, once their vision is severely impaired, their behavior may suggest they are senile or something but in reality something completely different and obvious to a veterinarian at least is totally going on and that's the source of the confusion. Thanks so much for pointing out those different possibilities. Again, that's why people should go see their vet and not assume all of a sudden that their pets are senile and maybe make a rash decision.

Dr. Christopher Lee: Correct.

Marko: I was wondering if you could tell us Dr. Lee what are some of the stats on how many pets are suffering from CDS? Do you have any info on that?

Dr. Christopher Lee: There was a recent study at the University of California School of Veterinary Medicine where they took a look at 69 different dogs, 32% of the 11-year-old dogs were affected with CDS and the dogs that were 16 years or older, 100% of the dog were affected with it.

Marko: Was there any mention of cats in that study?

Dr. Christopher Lee: Unfortunately, this is a dog study.

Marko: Okay. Of course, everyone wants to know that if their pet is suffering from CDS, what can we do to help with those situations?

Dr. Christopher Lee: There currently are a number of different treatment options available for dogs and cats who are suffering from CDS. The most common medication is something called Anipryl. It's also known as L-Deprenyl and Selegiline. What this medication is, is a monoamine oxidase inhibitor or MAO inhibitor. This group of drugs is commonly used in human medicine. In veterinary medicine, Anipryl is currently used mainly for CDS. In some cases, it can also be used to treat Cushing disease. However, there are a lot of other medications which are more commonly used with Cushing. In the study that I mentioned before, they actually had put these dogs on Anipryl and about 76% of the dogs showed improvement after just one month of use. That's very encouraging.

Marko: Can Anipryl be used with cats?

Dr. Christopher Lee: It can be used with cats.

Marko: Okay, but are there studies suggesting the efficacy or you just know that it can be used and help some cats?

Dr. Christopher Lee: There is data and dosaging for cats. This one study was just a solely canine study.

Marko: Okay, but it does seem to be effective with cats as well.

Dr. Christopher Lee: Yes. I don't have a statistics on the amount they are helped, but it does help cats.

Marko: Perfect.

Dr. Christopher Lee: The way in which Anipryl works is the MAO is an enzyme, which degrades dopamine. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter inside of the brain. Anipryl inhibits it and thus raises the level of the dopamine back to the main level of action. The one big caution with this medication is it does have serious drug interaction. So, it's very important that when you're discussing this with your veterinarian that a complete list of what your pet is taking be reviewed. A very common medication which is used in older dogs is phenylpropanolamine also known as Proin. It's used for urinary incontinence. It has a strong interaction with it. In cats, for inappropriate urination, there's a medication called amitriptyline. It also interacts with this drug. There is a long list of various drugs that it interacts with. It may or may not be appropriate for your pet.

Marko: In terms of other drugs besides Anipryl, are there any others that you've heard of that may help, Dr. Lee?

Dr. Christopher Lee: There is another medication. It's called [unintelligible] or propentophylline. This medication helps increase blood flow to the brain through vasodilatation and reducing blood viscosity. It's another option, something definitely to ask your vet beforehand. It may or may not be an available option.

Marko: In terms of other forms of treatment, what do we have for our aging cats and dogs?

Dr. Christopher Lee: There is a fairly new food that's been made by Science Diet called BD. It stands for brain diet. The way in which this works is it has a mixture of heavy levels of antioxidants, mitochondrial co-factors, similar to things like CoQ20 people may be familiar with, and omega fatty acids. It's a combination of these antioxidants, co-factors and fatty acid. They've been seen to show a remarkable improvement with the CDS. Sometimes in as little as two to eight weeks we can see pets that are starting to diminish in their signs.

Marko: Excellent, very, very interesting. In terms of those members and people on our site that prefer to use different brands, as far as you know, are there other foods on the market that do similar things?

Dr. Christopher Lee: I wish there were. As far as I know, there have not been any food that have been tested with respect to CDS. There are a lot of foods out there that focus on their antioxidants, mitochondrial co-factors, fatty acid, any food that does I think that's great. Also, there are a lot of people that can go to their local health food store and obtain antioxidants, CoQ10 and fatty acid as well.

Marko: In terms of holistic products, are there holistic products that we can use as well?

Dr. Christopher Lee: There are holistic products. I think the food that we had just talked about, again, I think the Coenzyme Q, fatty acid, antioxidant like your keratinoids, flavonoids, vitamin C, those are going to offer [unintelligible] underneath this holistic. There also have been a lot of pets that has positively responded to acupuncture. I think acupuncture is a wonderful treatment and there are certainly a lot of dogs and cats that seem to respond well to that. There is also an herb called Ginkgo biloba, which has been used in people for memory. I've seen it used in dogs, part of it. I don't have a lot of information with respect to cats.

Marko: But it does seem to help?

Dr. Christopher Lee: It does seem to help.

Marko: Well, anything that helps is definitely a good thing. Then I guess there might well be environmental factors as well that can be helping or influence this CDS scenario. Can you get into that a little bit as well, Dr. Lee?

Dr. Christopher Lee: Yes. There actually have been a couple of different studies that showed environment enrichment along with the antioxidant use to really help out with dogs and cats with CDS. Many times when we see these older dogs and cats, because one of the main signs with CDS is decrease of interaction and decreased activity as opposed to a young puppy or a kitty, there is a lot of the thought that they just don't care about the toys anymore, they don't care about interaction. Due to the CDS, they are not able to interact as well and so creating that interaction can really help stimulate their brain and really help them deal with the CDS, so increase use of toys, increase interaction. Many times, we may not be able to take them for the long walks, but even shorter walks can help them get back into life and get back into the interaction and having enjoyment of life and trying to interact with various toys, what's going on inside of the family can really help them out.

Marko: I think that's actually a good point because a lot of people are going to think that, "Oh, my cat and my dog are getting older, all they want to do is sleep," and they may be more fatigued. I mean it's normal to be more tired as we age of course, but like you say, people shouldn't assume that the pets are not interested in playing anymore or interested in interacting anymore, so it's really up to us to perhaps encourage more interaction with their toys with walks, with games for both cats and dogs. Would you agree with that?

Dr. Christopher Lee: Absolutely. I think that's a great way of helping these guys out.

Marko: So, thanks so much for that information, Dr. Lee. I know it's going to help a lot of people. I'm going to put some more information summarizing it in the show notes. Thanks so much for doing this. Thanks so much for giving our members and our visitors information about CDS, I got the politically correct term, and giving us some knowledge on what to look for and what treatments are available. Thanks so much again, Dr. Lee, and we'll be hearing you again very shortly.

Dr. Christopher Lee: As always, it's been a pleasure.

Marko: And that's going to do it for today's podcast. I'd like very much to thank Dr. Lee again for his great interview. Dr. Lee has agreed to continue to provide us with some great information and we're going to hear from him again next episode. We may change up the format a little bit by adding more segments in future shows, but you're still going to get some great information about pets and dogs and cats and all kinds and we hope you enjoy. The easy way to subscribe to the blog if you're subscribing to other podcasts is just click on the "Subscribe in iTunes" button on the front page of the blog, pets.ca/blog, and as long as you have iTunes downloaded, you will be getting reminders every time we put out a show automatically. Otherwise, you could just wait until we post on the site itself and you can listen that way. So, thanks very much for listening. We hope you enjoyed the show and as always, please give your pets a little scratchy under the chin for Marko. Bye for now.

[Outro Music]