What makes an aging patient a good candidate for acupuncture?

In this video, from a follow-up interview on her 2026 Veterinary Meeting & Expo lecture, Bonnie D. Wright, DVM, DACVAA, CVMA, CVPP, CCRT, CCRP, explains why age alone does not define a geriatric patient and how frailty, age-related disease, and chronic pain better identify those who may benefit most from acupuncture. She discusses frailty scales, declining mobility and strength, and why acupuncture can be a critical tool alongside conventional therapies to help the quality of life in aging patients. Wright emphasizes that many age-related changes are painful and that acupuncture may help address chronic pain that pharmaceuticals do not fully manage.

Related: Senior pets appear more cognitively aware after acupuncture. An expert explains why

Below is the transcript, lightly edited for clarity.

Wright: I think, as you look at the verbiage that we're using now around aging, it is this concept of frailty, where age itself is just a number and doesn't always—you know, your biological age doesn't always align with your numeric age. But once you start adding disease, geriatric diseases, they consider that geriatric. And then within that population, as you add those diseases, you start to get into frailty.

There are frailty scales available in people, and I think cats right now—I don't think anyone's done them for dogs yet—but that's really showing that decline in strength, ability to get up and walk, and interactiveness. Certainly, once you're anywhere on that frailty scale, and really once you get into that geriatric where you have age-related diseases, those are excellent patients for acupuncture.

I can't emphasize enough that so much of these aging changes are also painful, and as soon as there is chronic pain, I think acupuncture is a really critical piece of the puzzle. Our pharmaceuticals just don't address chronic pain as well as some of the non-pharmaceutical things like motion and acupuncture.