Intense emotions often weigh on pet parents when a feline family member reaches their final life stage. Accessing veterinary hospice care for your cat may ease this burden and can help map a smoother path at their end-of-life crossroad.
Key Takeaways
- Cat hospice care provides comfort-focused, medically guided support for terminally ill cats when curative treatment is no longer viable, helping to provide comfort during their final life stage.
- Palliative care improves life quality for cats with serious illnesses and can be used alongside curative treatments, unlike hospice care which is reserved for end-of-life care.
- Veterinary hospice helps guide pet parents through the emotional, physical, and logistical decisions of end-of-life care, including euthanasia considerations.
What Is Cat Hospice?
Similar to hospice care for people, veterinary hospice provides supportive, medically guided comfort care for patients near or at the end of life—regardless of their age—and when treatments directed at a cure are no longer viable.
Veterinarians tailor hospice care to help cat parents manage their cat’s comfort and the challenges of caregiving. Ailing cats who receive hospice care may continue to live their fullest life possible and reach a peaceful goodbye, whether pet parents choose humane euthanasia or natural death.
Cat hospice care includes:
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Recommendations for care that align with the pet parent’s time and with their physical, emotional, and financial resources.
What Is Palliative Care for Cats?
Palliative care aims to improve quality of life for cats who have serious ailments that may or may not directly limit their lifespan.
This care can start at any stage of a serious illness and can be given for many months or years along with treatments intended to cure an underlying condition. Palliative care is a component of hospice, but it isn’t limited to end-of-life care, as is cat hospice.
Veterinarians recommend palliative care when:
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A cat has a serious condition that diminishes their quality of life, such as a major injury, infection, inflammation, or other type of disorder.
Palliative care includes medications and other supportive measures to:
What Types of Illnesses Lead to Cat Palliative Care or Hospice Care?
Common feline diseases or other situations that may lead to palliative care or hospice care in cats may include:
What Treatments Can You Expect for a Cat in Palliative Care or Hospice?
There are various ways you can help to comfort a cat in hospice or palliative care. Most of these measures will revolve around relieving and preventing pain, helping to manage anxiety, modifying your home environment, and preventing infections.
Medications
Various medications are available to relieve pain and anxiety in cats, depending on their individual case.
It’s important to work with your veterinarian to determine the appropriate medications or other therapies that will help your cat.
Do not give your cat your medications or another pet’s medications without your veterinarian’s instruction.
Veterinary Physical Rehabilitation Therapy
A variety of animal rehabilitation techniques can help cats maintain mobility or function and enhance comfort. These are especially beneficial for cats with nerve, muscle, or joint conditions, and can help reduce inflammation and pain.
Veterinary physical rehabilitation therapy for cats may include:
Home Environment Adjustments
Ensuring a comfy and enriched home environment is important for cats during every life stage, and extra modifications may be helpful during end-of-life care. Depending on an ailing cat’s abilities, pet parents can help cats continue to:
Home modification options and cat-assist devices that can help cats live comfortably include:
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A cat bed with supportive, warm, and easy-to-clean materials
- Non-slip mats placed at the cat’s bowls and other locations as needed to support stable footing
Nutrition
Nutrition for cats in hospice emphasizes on highly tasty, easy-to-eat food that provides enough calories, protein, and water.
If cats refuse their regular food or veterinary therapeutic diet, your vet can suggest a more appealing food, new treats, food toppers, or food preparation tweaks to spark interest at mealtimes.
A cat’s lack of interest in food may stem from pain, nausea, or dehydration, and medications such as buprenorphine to reduce such discomfort are often used in hospice care for cats.
Despite flavorful enticements and supportive medications, there often comes a point when cats receiving hospice care will refuse to eat and drink. This is a natural part of the late end-stage of life. Gently offer food and water and ensure that these are easily accessible, but avoid forcing a cat in hospice to eat or drink, because it can cause distress.
Does My Cat Need Hospice or Palliative Care?
Cats nearing the end of life often show much less interest in activities they previously enjoyed, such as playing with toys or with family members, grooming themselves, using their scratching posts, or being brushed.
Cats may be more aloof or clingy, nap during the day more than normal, have frequent restless nights, and lose interest in food.
It’s important to work with your veterinarian to decide on the best course of action for your cat, based on their health condition and symptoms. The vet will also discuss the time, physical, emotional, and financial resources you must manage during this stage of your cat’s life.
Pet Hospice or Euthanasia?
Veterinary hospice care can help ailing cats continue to live their fullest life possible and reach a peaceful goodbye.
Regardless of the type or extent of care you choose, it’s helpful to prepare and discuss an end-of-life plan for your cat with your veterinarian. This plan can be adjusted as your cat’s health circumstances shift or your resources change, so take comfort in this.
Part of planning for the end means knowing how to evaluate your cat’s quality of life and tracking your cat’s good days and bad days. Many pet quality-of-life assessments are available to help you, including Lap of Love’s support resources.
Be honest with yourself about whether your ailing cat is still enjoying life. Talk with other trusted friends and your veterinarian about their impressions of your cat’s quality of life. If your cat no longer enjoys life or is suffering, choosing euthanasia is an appropriate and humane option.
A hospice veterinarian or your primary care veterinarian can tell you what occurs with a cat’s euthanasia or natural passing. Veterinarians are instrumental in sharing the information you need to decide when it is time to tell your cat, “Thank you for sharing in my life” in a peaceful final farewell.
Cat Hospice Care FAQs
What is the difference between cat hospice and cat palliative care?
When cats receive hospice care, veterinarians work with pet parents to focus on helping pets live as comfortably as possible at the end of their pet’s life. Veterinary hospice also helps pet parents plan for their cat’s peaceful life exit.
Palliative care encompasses comfort care for pets with serious illness (as does hospice care), but palliative care may be provided along with curative treatments. Unlike cat hospice, palliative care isn’t limited to end-of-life care.
How much does cat hospice cost?
Cat hospice care costs vary depending on whether veterinary visits and consultations take place in the pet’s home, in a veterinary clinic, or by using veterinary telemedicine services. Costs can also vary by the cities or states in which services are provided.
Are cat hospice services available near me?
Lap of Love is available in 40 states and offers a hospice provider location search database, as well as telehospice services.
Not all veterinarians in primary care practice offer pet hospice care. If yours does not, request a referral or ask whether you can work together to create a hospice care plan for your cat.
