A veterinarian explained how to recognize dementia in cats by nighttime crying

Nighttime crying as a possible sign of cognitive dysfunction

If an elderly cat cries loudly for long periods at night, this may indicate dementia in the pet, warned Anastasia Balmakova, assistant at the Department of Surgery, Obstetrics and Pathology of Small Animals of the Institute of Kazan State Agrarian University in a conversation with Gazeta.Ru. According to her, with feline dementia the voice most often changes: the animal cries, seems confused and vulnerable, while some cats, on the contrary, begin to avoid their owner and the company of other animals.

What happens in the brain and when to start

In veterinary medicine, the analogue of human dementia is called cognitive dysfunction syndrome. In the brain of an aging animal, beta-amyloid is deposited, because of which neurons gradually lose the ability to function and die off; the cortex of the cerebral hemispheres thins, and the areas responsible for memory and spatial orientation decrease in volume. In cats, this process, according to Balmakova, begins after the age of 10–11, although much depends on size and breed. According to various estimates, at least one symptom of cognitive dysfunction is present in every third cat over 11 years old.

Why one should not rush to a diagnosis

The veterinarian warned that age-related forgetfulness is easily attributed to personality or ordinary aging, and the owner may fail to see a doctor in time. However, similar behavior may be caused by chronic pain, hyperthyroidism in cats, or loss of hearing and vision, rather than cognitive dysfunction. 'The diagnosis is made by exclusion, and one must not rush it,' Balmakova noted. She gave examples: a cat whose vision has deteriorated begins to stay closer to its owner and looks confused in familiar surroundings, although the problem is not in the brain; and a sharp reaction of an elderly cat to a thunderstorm or a slamming door is often associated not with a new fear, but with joint pain — a loud sound makes the body tense up, in which something already hurts all the time.

The feeding mistake

Separately, the veterinarian drew attention to a typical mistake of owners: nighttime crying (vocalization) is almost always taken as a request for food, and they begin to feed the pet more often. According to her, it is more often not hunger, but confusion and anxiety in the dark, when the cat orients itself worse. Overfeeding in such a case does not solve the problem, but merely adds excess weight to the already existing age-related strains on the body. The Gazeta.Ru article also recalls that symptoms of dementia in dogs were previously named.