HRQL Instrument for Cats
Cats are still having the last laugh on dogs, as advances in veterinary medicine mean cats are having longer lives than ever before. Pet cats of 16, 18 and even 20 years old are no longer rarities in surgeries.
But I chose my words carefully, as cats having longer lives does not necessarily mean those animals are enjoying longer lives – or not to the full at least – since the presence of chronic diseases such as heart disease, feline diabetes, chronic kidney disease, cancer, and osteoarthritis have noticeably risen in line with longevity.
It’s a parallel with the human conundrum; that living longer when quality of life is severely compromised is at best, a mixed blessing.
Humans in the majority of cases are able to make their feelings known. In companion animals, however, the biggest challenge for vets and owners is to identify not just the symptoms of disease progression, but how the animal feels about living with a chronic condition, in order to reliably assess its health related quality of life (HRQL).
To make things worse, again like humans, ageing felines rarely suffer from the effects of one thing in isolation.
Measurement tools have existed for a while to track the progression of specific, diseases but results can be severely compromised when there is more than one comorbid disease present. In such cases, a disease specific instrument cannot separate the effects of one condition from another to determine the “wellness” of an animal, or to reliably explain behavioural changes that imply a reduction in welfare.
Vetmetrica is the only instrument that measures the emotional as well as the physical impact of disease.
Solving the conundrum of HRQL in non-verbal species has been the focus of the research team at NewMetrica for many years. We first developed a validated HRQL tool for dogs but have recently also been able to introduce a feline version which provides robust analysis of the cat’s well-being along three planes:
- Vitality
- Comfort
- Emotional well-being
This has involved extensive research into behavioural markers of pain and chronic disease. Observation is quick and easy but the results yield reliable and validated information which goes well beyond identification of symptoms.
It is recognised that drugs available to treat pain in the cat are limited, with only one non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) being licensed for long term use. However, in older animals, NSAIDs can have a detrimental effect on renal, hepatic, cardiovascular, or gastrointestinal conditions. In short, drug intervention can reduce one set of symptoms, only to make the cat feel much worse in the process
Reliable measurement of HRQL provides vets with the information they need to move to the promotion of a better quality of life, in the animal’s own terms.
For further information on the ease and scope of the NewMetrica cat tool, email rachel.malkani@newmetrica.com or click HERE.
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“I have been using VetMetrica for over 18 months now and have found it has revolutionised how I monitor patients and collect data to assess treatment responses. I have been using regenerative medicine to treat dogs and cats for over five years for a number of degenerative conditions such as osteoarthritis. As this treatment is new, I wanted to monitor responses to treatment to help develop protocols and best practice. I have been able to use some of this data to publish my results to promote awareness and efficacy of this novel treatment option. Initially, I was using owner questionnaires such as the canine brief pain index (CBPI), Liverpool osteoarthritis in dogs (LOAD) and the Helsinki chronic pain index along with measuring quantitative data and veterinary assessments. I soon found that these paper based questionnaires had their limitations. Commonly people were not able to answer all the questions or felt unqualified to do so. Incomplete questionnaires were useless and could not be used and getting owners to complete the forms and return them was a logistical nightmare. This resulted in missed data points and many cases did not continue to fill in the questionnaires after treatment. A lot of my time was spent chasing up these clients. My veterinary assessments and quantitative data were showing massive improvements but in many cases, I did not have sufficient validated owner reported treatment outcomes to compare with my findings. The power of my findings were therefore affected as my trials were not placebo controlled and double blinded, something that is very difficult to achieve in a clinical practice. I tried different questionnaires to see if I could get a better response rate from the owners but all had the same issues.
When I first heard about VetMetrica, I thought it may be the answer to my problems with owner reported outcomes. I found the team at NewMetrica very approachable and encouraging. Professor Jacky Reid gave me lots of advice on how VetMetrica could be set up and used in clinical practice and how its design would assist in complete questionnaires being returned and how the data could be analysed. VetMetrica had many advantages over the other questionnaires that I have used and it had been validated for osteoarthritis in dogs. It was very easy to set up and NewMetrica trained one of my colleagues to use the tools which was intuitive and easy to follow. The online questionnaire was appealing and its design made it impossible to leave a question unanswered so we no longer received partly completed questionnaires. All the data was instantly uploaded to give a health related quality of life score and this was easily graphed to track changes in various domains over time. This gave me great owner reported outcome measures for my data collection at the same time as I was collecting the veterinary assessments and quantitative data. I could view this data during my consultation and discuss with the owner how the dog was getting on in the home environment. Due to the owner email reminders, compliance was greatly improved and the software flagged any questionnaires that were due to be completed but that had not been. We could then chase these up with a quick phone call reminder and in most cases this was sufficient to ensure completion. I now have hundreds of animals enrolled on VetMetrica and this is providing a great window into the animals quality of life and how it feels in its home environment. This has enable me to better care for these patients and also collect good quality validated data for future publications. I cannot recommend VetMetrica enough and it has applications in clinicial practice as well as a research tool. Its real time monitoring allows for early identification of problems leading to quicker intervention and the results can be used to help guide owners decisions and monitor responses to treatment.” – Andy Armitage, Greenside Vet Practice
“I found that a computer based scale run by Newmetrica… the same great people who gave us the Glasgow Pain Scales… is a wonderful way to get reliable quality of life scores. You can find it here at http://www.newmetrica.com/vetmetrica-hrql/. It generates a non-biased decision using a computer algorithum. Answers are weighted differently so it is harder for the caregiver to subconsciously manipulate the outcome. And they cannot go back and change their answers like they can on paper form” Dr Mike Petty
“Firstly I want to congratulate you and your team on the important work you are doing in the field of pain assessment and in particular the NewMetrica HRQL tool which I think is a real game changer!” – Leon Warne.
