Pain! It’s one of the biggest challenges and important topics in veterinary medicine. Pets naturally avoid showing pain. Clients do not recognize pain and taking a pet to a practice likely masks pain even more with an adrenal response. Fortunately, there are now tools to identify and differentiate pain.
Source: JAVMA, April 1, 2020. Link. Katie Burns shares these tools for pain assessment:
Acute pain
- Feline Grimace Scale, Appendix 1.
- Colorado State University pain scales for cats and dogs, under “How do you know how much pain my pet is in?”
- Glasgow Composite Measure Pain Scales for cats and dogs.
- UNESP-Botucatu Multidimensional Composite Pain Scale for cats from São Paulo State University (UNESP) in Brazil, Table 1.
Chronic pain
- Canine Brief Pain Inventory for osteoarthritis and bone cancer.
- Feline Musculoskeletal Pain Index for degenerative joint disease.
- Composite Oral Pain Scale-Canine/Feline, Table 8.
Quality of life
- VetMetrica Health Related Quality of Life Tool for cats and dogs, user fee.