DOI: 10.2478/fv-2020-0040 FOLIA VETERINARIA, 64, 4: 71—77, 2020 RETINAL DISEASES OF SENIOR DOGS Balicka, A., Lapsanska, M., Trbolova, A. Small Animals Clinic University of Veterinary Medicine and Pharmacy in Košice, Komenského 73, 041 81 Košice Slovakia
[email protected] ABSTRACT INTRODUCTION Aging consists of a physiological decline of an organ- An animal’s life can be divided into four stages: paediat- ism’s functional activity. During the aging process, the ric, adult, senior (mature, middle age) and geriatric (called structural and functional changes of the retina can be senior or super senior) [14]. The understanding of ageing observed. In most cases, progressive vision loss occurs varies between different authors [9, 14, 34]. The progress due to the age related changes of the anterior segment. of ageing in the individual species depends upon its size, Retinal diseases, characteristic for senior dogs are: ret- breed, genetics and conditions under which they exist. In inal detachment, hypertensive chorioretinopathy, sud- 2012, Fortney published “The current human pet analogy den acquired retinal degeneration syndrome (SARDS), chart”, that helps to assess an animal’s life stage, based on progressive retinal atrophy (PRA), glaucoma, retinopa- its weight and age. This chart has been widely used in many thy, cystoid degeneration and neoplasms. The examina- studies, which required assigning patients to different age tion of the retina in senior dogs is based on: ophthalmo- groups [14]. scopic examination, electroretinography, spectral-do- The main reasons for vision loss of geriatric dogs are main optical coherence tomography (AD-OCT) and if not only the commonly occurring cataracts or corneal dis- necessary, histopathological examinations.