• Anna Bettina Johnson
• Anthony Holloway
• BL Ochman
• Bridget Pilloud
• Janet Roper
• Dr. Jill Elliot

The Special Needs of Aging Cats

The percentage of cats over six years old has nearly doubled in the past decade, according to a report by the Cornell Feline Health Center. And there’s every reason to believe the graying kitty population will continue to grow.

I’ve had cats for the past 40 years. Almost all of them have lived to a ripe old age, and were basically healthy their entire lives. White Cat lived to be 18, and Ms McGillicutty, to 16. That was unusual at the time, but kitty longevity is not so unusual anymore.

So how old is my cat, really?
The commonly held belief that every “cat year” is worth seven “human years” is not entirely accurate. In reality, a one-year-old cat is physiologically similar to a 16-year-old human, and a two-year-old cat is like a person of 21. For every year thereafter, each cat year is worth about four human years. Using this formula, a ten-year-old cat is similar age wise to a 53-year-old person, a 12-year-old cat to a 61-year-old person, and a 15-year-old cat to a person of 73.

Advancing age is not a disease
Like people, each cat experiences aging in its own unique ways. Many cats begin to encounter age-related physical changes between seven and 10, and most do so by the time they are 12.

Aging is a natural process. Even though many conditions that affect older cats are not correctable, they can often be controlled. The key to making sure your senior cat has the healthiest and highest quality of life possible is to recognize and reduce factors that may be health risks, detect disease as early as possible, correct or delay the progression of disease, and improve or maintain the health of the body’s systems. Read the rest of the report here.

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