Studies were primarily related to the assessment of pain in relation to surgical procedures , and no clear distinction was made concerning the onset of acute and chronic pain .
The metrics used within the tools appeared to focus primarily on the sensory aspect of pain , with no study clearly discriminating between the sensory and affective components of pain .
Objectives The objectives were to review systematic ally the range of assessment tools used in cats to detect the behavioural expression of pain and the evidence of their quality ; and to examine behavioural metrics ( considering both the sensory and affective domains ) used to assess pain .
Comparison between meloxicam and carprofen for postoperative analgesia after feline ovariohysterectomy.
Eighty female cats presented for ovariohysterectomy were r and omly allocated to one of two treatment groups in this assessor-blinded trial . After pre-anaesthetic assessment , the cats were premedicated with acepromazine ( 0.1 mg/kg ) . Anaesthesia was induced with thiopentone and maintained with halothane in oxygen .  Forty cats received carprofen ( 4 mg/kg subcutaneously ) and 40 received meloxicam ( 0.3 mg/kg subcutaneously ) after anaesthetic induction . Following routine flank ovariohysterectomy the cats were assessed using visual analogue scale scores for pain and sedation over a 20-hour study period . Blood sample s were taken before sedation and at 20 hours for serum biochemistry ( urea , creatinine , alanine aminotransferase and aspartate aminotransferase ) . There were no significant differences between the groups for pain and sedation scores . Serum biochemistry values were similar between the groups , with some differences within groups between the pre-sedation and 20-hour values . One cat in the carprofen group and two cats in the meloxicam group required rescue analgesia with intramuscular morphine ( 0.2 mg/kg )
Studies were primarily related to the assessment of pain in relation to surgical procedures , and no clear distinction was made concerning the onset of acute and chronic pain .
The metrics used within the tools appeared to focus primarily on the sensory aspect of pain , with no study clearly discriminating between the sensory and affective components of pain .
Objectives The objectives were to review systematic ally the range of assessment tools used in cats to detect the behavioural expression of pain and the evidence of their quality ; and to examine behavioural metrics ( considering both the sensory and affective domains ) used to assess pain .