Measuring Mobility: How to Tell If the Arthritis Treatment Is Working

You start your arthritic dog on pain relief. Three weeks later your vet asks whether it's helping.

You genuinely don't know. Some days seem better. Yesterday was bad. Was that the weather? Was he better last month? You end up saying "maybe a bit?", which isn't much for anyone to work with.

This is one of the most common problems in managing chronic conditions, and it's solvable with a few simple measurements.

Why impressions fail here

• Day-to-day variation is large. Weather, activity the day before, what surface they've been on. A single bad day feels significant and isn't.
• Hope distorts perception in both directions — you want the expensive treatment to work, or you're braced for decline.
• Gradual change is invisible, and gradual change is exactly what you're measuring.
• Adrenaline masks lameness in the vet's consulting room, which is precisely where the assessment usually happens.

The fix is a handful of objective, repeatable measures, done the same way each time.

The measures

Pick three or four. Do them the same way, on the same surface, at the same time of day, weekly or fortnightly.

1. Time to stand.

From lying flat to standing squarely on all four feet. Time it with a phone stopwatch.

Do it when they've been lying down for at least twenty minutes, ideally first thing in the morning when stiffness is worst. Call them or offer a treat so they're motivated.

A dog who took nine seconds in March and four seconds in May has genuinely improved. This is one of the most sensitive measures available.

2. Sit-to-stand repetitions.

How many times can they sit and stand in one minute, comfortably, without being pushed? Or simply: how many can they do before they slow noticeably or refuse?

Do it on a non-slip surface. Stop if they show distress.

3. Steps or stairs.

Can they go up? How many? Do they pause? Do they take them one at a time or bunny-hop with the back legs together?

Record the specific number they'll do before hesitating.

4. Walk distance.

How far before they slow, lag, stop, or start limping? Use a fixed route — to the corner and back, once around the block — and record whether they completed it comfortably, completed it with effort, or turned back.

5. Jumping.

Can they get onto the sofa, the bed, into the car? Do they need to be lifted? Do they attempt it and abort?

For cats, this is the primary measure. Can they still reach their favourite high spot? Are they using an intermediate step they didn't need before? Are they no longer going upstairs?

6. Thigh circumference.

Measure with a soft tape at a consistent point — say, halfway between hip and knee — on both hind legs. Mark the spot with a dab of chalk or note the measurement from a bony landmark.

Muscle mass is the thing most treatments are trying to preserve, and it's directly measurable. Asymmetry between legs is also informative.

7. Video.

The most useful of all. Film them walking away from the camera and towards it, on a hard, non-slip surface, for about ten metres each way. Same location, same lighting.

Do this monthly. Compare month to month. You will see things you cannot perceive live — a shortened stride, a head bob, a swing in the hips, a foot that's scuffing.

The daily one-liner

Alongside the formal measures, keep a simple daily note.

The good day / bad day tally works well here: define at the start what a good day means for your animal, then record one letter each evening.

Or use a simple 1–5 scale for mobility, recorded at the same time daily.

The value is in the ratio over weeks. A treatment that shifts you from four bad days a week to one is working, even if you can't feel the difference on any given Tuesday.

Cats specifically

Cats hide pain expertly and rarely limp. Arthritis in cats shows up as changes in behaviour, not lameness:

• No longer jumping onto surfaces they used to reach
• Using intermediate steps to get up
• Sleeping in more accessible places
• Reduced grooming, leading to a matted or scruffy coat, particularly over the back and hips
• Litter tray accidents — often because a high-sided tray has become hard to climb into
• Irritability when handled or picked up
• Reduced play
• Sleeping more, interacting less

Track these as yes/no observations weekly. "Still jumping onto the kitchen counter" is a perfectly good clinical measure.

Around 90% of cats over twelve have arthritic changes visible on X-ray. If your old cat has stopped jumping, that's the reason until proven otherwise, and it's treatable.

Reading the results

Starting a new treatment: take your baseline measures in the week before starting. Then repeat at two weeks, four weeks, and eight weeks.

Judging it: most pain relief for arthritis shows meaningful effect within one to two weeks. If nothing has moved at four weeks, that's worth reporting — it may need a dose adjustment, an additional drug, or a rethink.

Watch for the placebo effect on yourself. This is well documented in veterinary trials — owners report improvement in animals given placebo. Objective measures protect against it.

Expect variation. Look at the trend across four weeks, not at individual readings.

Taking it to your vet

*"He's maybe a bit better"* versus:

*"Time to stand has gone from 8 seconds to 4. He's doing the full block again instead of turning back halfway. He's got onto the sofa unassisted five times this week — he hadn't done it at all in March. Thigh circumference is up 1cm on both sides."*

The second gets you a real conversation about whether to continue, adjust or add. It also justifies the cost of treatment to yourself, which matters when the medication is expensive.

When the numbers go the other way

Tracked mobility also gives you an honest read on decline, which is uncomfortable and important.

When mobility measures are consistently deteriorating despite optimised treatment — when they can't stand unaided, can't toilet standing, are falling regularly — that's the information a quality-of-life conversation needs.

Having it written down, in your own records, makes that conversation clearer and, in our experience, considerably easier to live with afterwards.

Members log these measures in the community tracker with the video attached to the date, so the comparison is side by side. But a notebook and a phone camera does everything described here.