Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - When death comes calling, so does Oscar the cat

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When death comes calling, so does Oscar the cat

Quote:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/07/25/dea....ap/index.html

PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island (AP) -- Oscar the cat seems to have an uncanny knack for predicting when nursing home patients are going to die, by curling up next to them during their final hours.

His accuracy, observed in 25 cases, has led the staff to call family members once he has chosen someone. It usually means the patient has less than four hours to live.

"He doesn't make too many mistakes. He seems to understand when patients are about to die," Dr. David Dosa said in an interview. He describes the phenomenon in a poignant essay in Thursday's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

"Many family members take some solace from it. They appreciate the companionship that the cat provides for their dying loved one," said Dosa, a geriatrician and assistant professor of medicine at Brown University.

The 2-year-old feline was adopted as a kitten and grew up in a third-floor dementia unit at the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. The facility treats people with Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease and other illnesses.

After about six months, the staff noticed Oscar would make his own rounds, just like the doctors and nurses. He'd sniff and observe patients, then sit beside people who would wind up dying in a few hours.

Dosa said Oscar seems to take his work seriously and is generally aloof. "This is not a cat that's friendly to people," he said.

Oscar is better at predicting death than the people who work there, said Dr. Joan Teno of Brown University, who treats patients at the nursing home and is an expert on care for the terminally ill

She was convinced of Oscar's talent when he made his 13th correct call. While observing one patient, Teno said she noticed the woman wasn't eating, was breathing with difficulty and that her legs had a bluish tinge, signs that often mean death is near.

Oscar wouldn't stay inside the room, though, so Teno thought his streak was broken. Instead, it turned out the doctor's prediction was roughly 10 hours too early. Sure enough, during the patient's final two hours, nurses told Teno that Oscar joined the woman at her bedside.

Doctors say most of the people who get a visit from the sweet-faced, gray-and-white cat are so ill they probably don't know he's there, so patients aren't aware he's a harbinger of death. Most families are grateful for the advance warning, although one wanted Oscar out of the room while a family member died. When Oscar is put outside, he paces and meows his displeasure.

No one's certain if Oscar's behavior is scientifically significant or points to a cause. Teno wonders if the cat notices telltale scents or reads something into the behavior of the nurses who raised him.

Nicholas Dodman, who directs an animal behavioral clinic at the Tufts University Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine and has read Dosa's article, said the only way to know is to carefully document how Oscar divides his time between the living and dying.

If Oscar really is a furry grim reaper, it's also possible his behavior could be driven by self-centered pleasures like a heated blanket placed on a dying person, Dodman said.

Nursing home staffers aren't concerned with explaining Oscar, so long as he gives families a better chance at saying goodbye to the dying.

Oscar recently received a wall plaque publicly commending his "compassionate hospice care."

I'd be scared shitless if that thing curled up next to me.

Another story I heard on the morning radio, this morning, in fact...

Ha! Supposedly this cat is more accurate in predicting death than the doctors, and when he goes to visit an elderly patient, he lingers around for a while before the patients seem to pass away.

They say every patient Oscar has visited has died within four hours of the cat's stay.

"The Cat of Death" :lol:

:paranoid:

Edit: I just realized this exact story is already in 'Tilted Pets'

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=121445

Update on the story:

Quote:

Dr David Dosa, a geriatrician and assistant professor at Brown University, said that five years of records showed Oscar rarely erring, sometimes proving medical staff at the New England nursing home wrong in their predictions over which patients were close to death.

The cat, now five and generally unsociable, was adopted as a kitten at the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Centre in Providence, Rhode Island, which specialises in caring for people with severe dementia.

Dr Dosa first publicised Oscar's gift in an article in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2007. Since then, the cat has gone on to double the number of imminent deaths it has sensed and convinced the geriatrician that it is no fluke.

The tortoiseshell and white cat spends its days pacing from room to room, rarely spending any time with patients except those with just hours to live.

If kept outside the room of a dying patient, Oscar will scratch on the door trying to get in.

When nurses once placed the cat on the bed of a patient they thought close to death, Oscar "charged out" and went to sit beside someone in another room. The cat's judgement was better than that of the nurses: the second patient died that evening, while the first lived for two more days.

Dr Dosa and other staff are so confident in Oscar's accuracy that they will alert family members when the cat jumps on to a bed and stretches out beside its occupant.

...

In his book, "Making rounds with Oscar: the extraordinary gift of an ordinary cat", Dr Dosa offers no solid scientific explanation for Oscar's behaviour.

He suggests Oscar is able - like dogs, which can reportedly smell cancer - to detect ketones, the distinctly-odoured biochemicals given off by dying cells.

...

Cat predicts 50 deaths in RI nursing home - Telegraph
by Tom Leonard

---------- Post added at 04:06 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:05 PM ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by LoganSnake (Post 2282993)

Aw, nuts.

crap, I replied in the wrong thread.

OK - now the science.

How many people did the cat visit who didn't die?

How many people did the cat visit who did not know the cat had visited, and did die?

How many people did the cat visit who knew about it and did die?

How many people were visited by an unrelated "control" cat, or other animal?

:D

Dermun kat can has humun solz fr munchez?

Allow me to sugest a less pleasant hypothesis as to the nature of this feline:

This cat is a demonic entity which feeds on the recently departed and thus weakened souls of the people who die near him. This is why he is annoyed whenever he can't be next to a patient when they are dying - as we all know, cats are quite upset by missing their food.

Lex and Terry have been doing a bit on this for a while now.. pretty fuckin funny too.

I don't even remember making this thread.

my damn cat keeps jumping up on the bed at nite...I'm worried now!

xoxoxoo