Differentiating Neurologic Diseases with Similar Presentations in Dogs and Cats

Diagnosis and management of nervous system disease relies heavily on clinical observation and subjective clinician assessment. Unfortunately, while most clinical signs of nervous system disease are helpful in “localization”, these signs are not specific enough (“pathognomonic”) to make a definitive diagnosis based on clinical assessment alone. Without confirmatory diagnostic testing, clinical assumptions are made creating confusion among neurologists as to which diagnosis is the most accurate in individual patients. This discussion will highlight the most common disease processes where clinical signs of different diseases are similar, and therefore, easily misdiagnosed as one or the other, or in some instances, multiple different diseases. Discussion will include diseases such as degenerative myelopathy, fibrocartilaginous emboli, atlantoaxial instability, and associated diseases chronic intervertebral disk disease, traumatic intervertebral disk disease, and syringomyelia. This discussion will also highlight the importance of differentiating “presumptive” from “definitive” diagnoses in the medical literature.