Performing Wellness Testing Can Prolong Your Pet's Life

As pets live longer, owners are more willing to expend time and money to help ensure that their pets live even healthier lives. Because of this, increasing numbers of anesthetic and surgical procedures involve geriatric patients. (A geriatric patient can most easily be defined as any pet older than 7 or 8 years of age). In short, age has no longer become an excuse for avoiding anesthesia and surgery.

Due to the many physical and metabolic changes that occur in animals as they age, there is certainly a greater risk involved with anesthesia and surgery than there would be with a younger cat or dog. However, this risk is dependent not only on the condition of the patient, but on other factors as well, such as the type of anesthetic agent used, the kind of surgical procedure to be performed and the skill of both the anesthesiologist and the surgeon.

The increased risk factor associated with anesthesia and surgery in all ages of pets can be greatly reduced by taking some simple precautions:

A complete history and thorough physical examination is essential to help ensure the patient is in good physical condition. Special attention is paid to the heart and lungs since 10 per cent of dogs have some form of heart disease, but this figure increases to more than 30 per cent in dogs over 12 years of age.) An ECG, chest X-ray, and ultrasonography, are important tools to identify abmormalities in the heart and lungs.

A laboratory evaluation consisting of a complete blood count, urine analysis and blood biochemical profile should be performed. This evaluation is important in all patients, but is particularly critical in the older patients because of the effects of aging on the various organs of the body. For example, liver enzyme activity decreases with age, affecting the ability of the liver to detoxify certain anasthetic agents and drugs. Likewise, undetected kidney disease can lead to protein loss that could delay tissue healing and decrease the excretion of some drugs by the kidneys.

The use of intravenous fluids before, during, and after anesthesia helps the patient to recover faster and feel better after the anesthesia. It also provides an easy route of administration for medications and also ensures quick venous access in the case of a medical emergency.

If these precautions are taken, the risk of anesthesia in all patients is greatly reduced. Combined with new and very safe anesthetic agents and constant, effective monitoring of the patient throughout the procedure, the anesthetic and surgical risk to your pet is minimized.