Your dog can get dementia - here’s how to prevent it
Just like us, dogs can experience cognitive decline as they age. They can also risk developing a neurodegenerative condition called Canine Cognitive Dysfunction (CCD), a condition similar to Alzhheimer’s Disease.
Like Alzheimer’s, symptoms dogs with CCD can experience include a loss of spatial awareness, memory deficiencies, disrupted sleep, and altered social interactions.
Both CCD and Alzheimer’s also share symptoms found in the brain itself, including the buildup of fragments of a protein called beta-amyloid in between nerve cells.
According to a new study published in the journal Scientific Reports, the risk of developing CCD increases by 68 percent each year after dogs turn 10.
The team studied a whopping 15,019 dogs that took part in a longitudinal study called the Dog Ageing Project. Between 2019 and 2020, the owners of participating pets completed two surveys about the health status and physical activity of their dogs. They also completed the Canine Social and Learned Behaviour survey, which tested for symptoms of CCD such as dogs failing to recognise familiar people.
But, they also found that older pooches that were very active had a much smaller risk of developing the condition in comparison to less active dogs of the same breed and health - with the more sedentary dogs having a 6.47 times higher risk of having CCD.
They stress that their study doesn’t show that a lack of physical activity causes CCD, and are calling for more research to determine whether CCD is caused by less physical activity or if the inactivity is caused by CCD.
Because of the similarities between CCD and Alzheimer’s disease, the team argue that means that researching CCD could have implications for our understanding and treatment of Alzheimer’s, and vice versa.
For example, the association between physical activity and lower risks of CCD come after numerous studies showing this relationship in rodents and in humans.
“These observations may reflect a variety of biologic mechanisms, including a reduction of pro-inflammatory cytokines in the brain that otherwise contribute to neural damage and death, and an increase in neural plasticity,” they write of the studies with rodents and people, adding that these mechanisms might also explain the link between physical activity and CCD risk.
“Given increasing evidence of the parallels between canine and human cognitive disease, accurate CCD diagnosis in dogs may provide researchers with more suitable animal models in which to study ageing in human populations.”
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