Developing valid tools that assess key determinants of canine healthspan such as frailty and health-related quality of life (HRQL) is essential to characterizing and understanding aging in dogs. ...Additionally, because the companion dog is an excellent translational model for humans, such tools can be applied to evaluate gerotherapeutics and investigate mechanisms underlying longevity in both dogs and humans. In this multi-center, cross-sectional study, we investigated the use of a clinical questionnaire (Canine Frailty Index; CFI; Banzato et al., 2019) to assess frailty and an owner assessment tool (VetMetrica HRQL) to evaluate HRQL in 451 adult companion dogs. Results demonstrated validity of the tools by confirming expectations that frailty score increases and HRQL scores deteriorate with age. CFI scores were significantly higher (higher frailty) and HRQL scores significantly lower (worse HRQL) in old dogs (≥ 7 years of age) compared to young dogs (≥ 2 and < 6 years of age). Body size (small < 11.3 kg (25 lbs) or large > 22.7 kg (50 lbs)) was not associated with CFI or total HRQL score. However, older, larger dogs showed faster age-related decline in HRQL scores specific to owner-reported activity and comfort. Findings suggest that the clinician-assessed CFI and owner-reported VetMetrica HRQL are useful tools to evaluate two determinants of healthspan in dogs: the accumulation of frailty and the progressive decline in quality of life. Establishing tools that operationalize the assessment of canine healthspan is critical for the advancement of geroscience and the development of gerotherapeutics that benefit both human and veterinary medicine.
Graphical abstract
Graphical summary of the design, results, and conclusions of the study
Abstract One of the concepts that is regularly referred to in studies on retranslation, but has not yet been extensively investigated or operationalized, is the (alleged) aging of (literary) ...translations. While the assumption that every generation deserves its own translation of canonical literary works is taken for granted, particularly by non-academic critics of literary (re)translations, this notion does not seem to be as prevalent in academia. In this article, I review the scholarly literature on retranslation in order to determine how the concept of aging has been defined and described in translation studies so far. The findings of this survey will subsequently be tested out with a number of case studies on literary retranslation, allowing us to determine the relative importance of the concept and define its different aspects. Finally, I present the first results of an empirical pilot study on aging in literary translation, and will suggest several lines for further investigation that would allow translation studies to further operationalize the concept for future, more comprehensive and systematic analyses of aging in all its different (linguistic, translational, and cultural) aspects.
