Why screening exists at all
Senior cats are masters of concealment. The illnesses that dominate feline old age — kidney disease, an overactive thyroid, diabetes, high blood pressure, dental disease — typically develop quietly for months while the cat eats, sleeps, and behaves almost normally at home. Screening is the deliberate search for those problems before they become crises, which is why vets generally move older cats to examinations twice a year and pair the hands-on check with laboratory work rather than relying on how well she seems.
The examination itself
Expect a thorough nose-to-tail once-over with a few senior-specific emphases. Weight is compared against previous visits and paired with a muscle condition check, because a cat can hold her weight while quietly losing muscle. The vet will feel the thyroid gland in the neck, listen to the heart for murmurs and rhythm, examine the mouth for the dental disease most seniors carry, look at the retinas for changes linked to blood pressure, and palpate the abdomen and kidneys. Your report matters here: appetite, thirst, litter output, night behaviour, and jumping ability are data, not small talk. The vet will also ask how she is sleeping, whether stairs have become slower, and whether her grooming reach has shrunk, because those everyday details often date a change more precisely than the tests themselves can.
Blood, urine, and blood pressure
A typical senior panel includes a complete blood count, looking at red cells, white cells, and platelets, and a chemistry panel covering kidney values, liver values, blood sugar, and electrolytes, plus a thyroid hormone level in most older cats. A urine sample adds what blood cannot: how well the kidneys concentrate urine, and early signs of infection or sugar spilling over. Blood pressure measurement has become a standard senior check because hypertension in cats is common, symptomless until it is not, and capable of damaging eyes, kidneys, heart, and brain. Individual cats may also be offered imaging or further tests based on what these first results show.
Making the results useful over time
A single normal result is reassuring; a series of results is powerful. Kidney values creeping upward across three visits, weight sliding a little at a time, blood pressure trending the wrong way — trends are how vets catch disease at the stage where diet, medication discussions, and monitoring plans actually change outcomes. Keep every result, note the date and the cat's weight beside it, and take the file to any new clinic, emergency visit, or cattery stay so no one has to reconstruct her history from memory.
Between screenings, your half of the bargain
Screening does not replace observation; it depends on it. Book promptly rather than waiting for the next routine visit if you see drinking and urination climb, weight fall despite a good appetite, appetite vanish, vomiting become regular, or behaviour change at night. Those signs move a cat from routine screening into a diagnostic work-up, and earlier is genuinely better for nearly all of them. To keep the record straight between visits, KinsLe's Pet Passport holds her screening results together in one portable packet alongside her other records, ready for the vet visit, the emergency clinic, or the boarding handoff without a scramble through old emails.