Maximizing quality of life in ill animals.

Abstract

The foundation of our veterinary training has always been to prolong the life of the animals we care for and, through advances in veterinary health care, our profession has been very effective at achieving this goal. However, concurrent with these advances comes the responsibility of alleviating animal suffering, and this is enunciated in the pledge we all make upon graduation - the veterinarian's oath. Through the power of the human-animal bond, pet owners are increasingly focused on their pet's wellbeing and, in its broadest definition, their quality of life (QOL). Quality of life is a very complex concept but in its simplest view may be regarded as one's general enjoyment of life. Quality of life is very individualized, based on each animal's unique genetic makeup, personality and learned experiences and scored through the evaluation of a variety of contributing factors. For animals, these contributing factors are theorized to be comprised of social relationships, mental stimulation, health, food consumption, stress and control over their environment. Quality of life is difficult to quantify, principally because the individual and collective impacts of contributing factors on QOL, whether positive or negative, vary between animals. This is further complicated by the reliance on a proxy QOL evaluator, the pet owner. While it is useful to be able to measure QOL to better quantify attempts to improve an animal's QOL, an inability to do so does not hamper the veterinarian's ability to introduce initiatives designed to maximize QOL. This special feature article reviews the general principles and variables that provide the foundation for QOL and its assessment and goes on to provide a framework for maximizing QOL in ill animals. It concludes that as research continues to elucidate the feelings of animals and the impact of disease states, the veterinarian's ability to assess and maximize QOL will steadily improve.