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Killing with Kindness

Killing with Kindness

It’s predictably sad that those parts of the UK with the most overweight adults also have the most overweight pets, (www.dognutritionguide.co.uk/dog-obesity).

As a nation seemingly obsessed with snacking, the equation of unhealthy additions to our own diet as “treats” may be contributing significantly reducing the quality of our lives – as well as those of our companion animals.

In Scotland, around 30% of dogs are deemed overweight or obese and, according to Professor Jacky Reid, CEO of animal wellbeing measurement specialists, NewMetrica, this can not only reduce the quality of life of our canine companions, but contribute to an early death.

“The UK is well recognised as a nation of pet-lovers. For many, dogs are part of the family and live closely beside us within the family unit. Unfortunately, this also means many are equally subject to human bad habits, with pets being given high fat, salt and sugar snacks that their bodies don’t need.

“Especially as an animal ages, it’s need for calories typically declines and unfortunately, only a few extra pounds can put excess stress on joints and organs, which a dog can’t do anything about.

“It’s not programmed to refuse food so the onus is on pet owners to behave responsibly, for the sake of their canine companion’s wellbeing.”

 

Health Related Quality of Life (HRQL) in dogs

NewMetrica has evolved specialist tools over many years which reliably measure Health Related Quality of Life (HRQL) in animals, including companion dogs. These tools are widely used in veterinary practice and in clinical trials to determine information that animals can’t tell us; to reveal how they are actually feeling about their physical state.

Prof Jacky Reid, who is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at Glasgow University, says; “We developed NewMetrica as an evolutionary tool from the Glasgow Pain Scale, working with animals who cannot tell humans directly what they are feeling but whose wellbeing is clearly important.

“New Metrica tools do not simply measure the pain of conditions such as osteo-arthritis, they also identify a broader sense of the animal’s wellbeing and any changes in its quality of life. The dog who happily snaps up cheese, crisps or ice cream can’t tell you if it then feels sick, sluggish or nauseous.

“If an animal then goes on to become increasingly less mobile or to develop headaches, joint pain or sromach aches, it can’t easily convey the full picture to its owner either.” 

 

Help is available        

Regular monitoring by vets helps pet-owners determine a healthy weight for individual animals. Vets can suggest the appropriate dietary balance and types of food for particular breeds and ages of dogs. They can also offer advice on dealing with begging behaviour in relation to food.

Thanks to the work of NewMetrica, understanding of how lifestyle, diet and therapeutic drugs can impact on wellbeing is also scientifically measurable for those working with companion animals.

This is invaluable in giving dogs a voice regarding their own wellbeing.

 

Information on the range of clinical HRQL tools available from NewMetrica is available at www.newmetrica.com

            

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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.

“It goes without saying that within our dealings with the team at NewMetrica we found them to be consistently helpful and professional throughout”.