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Old 07-26-2007, 03:27 AM   #1 (permalink)
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CNN: Cat accurately predicts soon to die patients at nursing home

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

A few hours before patients die, this little guy curls up with you, with insane accuracy.

Mind Boggling
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Old 07-26-2007, 03:44 AM   #2 (permalink)
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This immediately reminded me of dogs who can sense a seizure before it happens. Much of that has to do with their sense of smell, I believe. Maybe cats have something that allows them to sense the "conditions" of a impending death. Animals have such keen senses that we humans can only shake our heads at. They also don't have the same number of distractions that we do.

Interesting article anyway; even if it really is the cat lying with the dying patient just because they often have a heated blanket.
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Old 07-26-2007, 03:45 AM   #3 (permalink)
 
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That is... wow. Both very cool, and kinda creepy. As long as the patients aren't too aware of the cat's presence, I see it as a good thing. But if they are aware of him, and they know that he's the "grim reaper," well that would be kind of sad/freaky.

Animals can be so cool with their "sense" of things. Wish we could understand the mechanisms a little better...
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Old 07-26-2007, 04:36 AM   #4 (permalink)
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Anyone ever see Bubba Ho-tep? maybe he needs to be STOPPED
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Old 07-26-2007, 04:57 AM   #5 (permalink)
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oh no! Keep it away from their assholes!

/in response to Dr Mario Kart

Anyway, pretty interesting.
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Old 07-26-2007, 05:33 AM   #6 (permalink)
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I feel terrible having made this

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Old 07-26-2007, 05:56 AM   #7 (permalink)
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That is so wrong....but I love it
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Old 07-26-2007, 06:17 AM   #8 (permalink)
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Pretty kitty... where can I get me one of those?
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Old 07-26-2007, 06:35 AM   #9 (permalink)
 
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Dr Mario... it had to be done. If not by you, then by some other sick-minded weirdo. Nice one!!!
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Old 07-26-2007, 09:57 AM   #10 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Lady Sage
Pretty kitty... where can I get me one of those?
Uh uh. Everytime this cat would be coming near me, I'd cry. LOL! I'd worry everytime this cat came near one of my friends or family.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr Mario Kart
I feel terrible having made this

That is HILARIOUS!!!
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Last edited by Amnesia620; 07-26-2007 at 09:58 AM.. Reason: Automerged Doublepost
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Old 07-26-2007, 11:13 AM   #11 (permalink)
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Dr Mario Kart:

This is the first and only time I've ever laughed at one of those "cat pics with funky words under them" pictures... and I laughed long and hard. Congratulations.

I would also make the following observation: People, even with full-blown dementia/Alzheimer's/neurological disorders, are more likely to succumb to their fate if they feel relaxed, at peace. If the cat is curling up with the patient, even though they *say* the patient likely doesn't know the cat is there, the patient may still feel the cat on them, feel the warmth or *something*. If this is the case, it would certainly support the idea that when the cat curls up, it gives the patient some level of comfort, some feeling of companionship, that causes them to relax a bit and finally give in to their illness. Even if the person is completely unresponsive to external stimuli like talking or touching, doesn't necessarily mean they can't hear or feel what's going on. We don't know that for certain.

So really... the cat may almost be giving people the comfort to finally die, rather than predicting when it actually happens.

Last edited by analog; 07-26-2007 at 11:21 AM..
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Old 07-26-2007, 11:19 AM   #12 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by analog
Dr Mario Kart:

This is the first and only time I've ever laughed at one of those "cat pics with funky words under them" pictures... and I laughed long and hard. Congratulations.
I laugh at a lot of them...but this one is definitely one I'll actually remember.
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Old 07-26-2007, 12:24 PM   #13 (permalink)
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HAHAHAH!

Now I know why my cat "checks" on me at night.

Psychic bastard.

...

Omigod, I GOT it. Hahaha, a NEW LINE OF US AIR FORCE SMART MUNITIONS!

Simply insert Oscar-like cats into bomb capsules and drop them on "terrorists"...

No explosion, no napalm, no radiation... just "terrorists" that get cuddled with and die the next day.
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Last edited by Plan9; 07-26-2007 at 12:27 PM.. Reason: Smart Munitions
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Old 07-26-2007, 01:56 PM   #14 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr Mario Kart
I feel terrible having made this

OMFG I can't stop laughing at this! Is that bad?
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Old 07-27-2007, 04:42 AM   #15 (permalink)
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Many family members take some solace from it. They appreciate the companionship that the cat provides for their dying loved one.
So....do the patients know about this?

Mary Jane Rottencrotch: "Awwww...look Grandma, the furry little Angel of Death just curled up beside you. Idn't dat cute?"
Grandma: "AHHHHHHH!! Get it off me!! Get it off me!!
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Old 07-27-2007, 04:47 AM   #16 (permalink)
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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.
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Old 07-27-2007, 07:13 AM   #17 (permalink)
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Creepy!

"Meow! Yur gunna fawkin' DIE! Meow!"
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Old 07-27-2007, 03:29 PM   #18 (permalink)
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While not necessisarily death related, I had a cat that on one of my more down emotional days cut out its normal antics and spent a little additional time with me.

The cat, in its way. was offering support to me....
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Old 07-27-2007, 04:47 PM   #19 (permalink)
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After reading that article, I get really suspicious when my cats curl up with me when I go to bed. I'm pretty sure that the only reason that they haven't killed me yet is because they haven't figured out how to feed themselves.
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Old 07-29-2007, 05:36 AM   #20 (permalink)
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I was yesterday visiting a friend in ICU, at the hospital, and they have very unique visiting hours (30 minutes every 2 hours). Needless to say this story came on tv while we were waiting and there was about 8-9 different families there, and it started a whole conversation about it. Was very interesting to see the split but most people there were ready to kill the cat, and said it was not really a good thing.
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Old 07-29-2007, 05:56 AM   #21 (permalink)
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Isn't there an old superstition about cats stealing your breath while you sleep?

Ours have a different talent. They can magically sense whenever I'm in the biggest fattest hurry of my life and they take turns lining up in front of me and walking like little kitty grandmas. Ask Grancey how many times a week she'll suddenly hear me calling out from somewhere in the house, "Get out of the way, get out of the way, get the fuck out of the way!"
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Old 08-03-2007, 09:47 AM   #22 (permalink)
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I don't know why they haven't arrested this cat for murder. He's a four-legged furry Angel of Death!

Line up the dots, man! Cat curls up next to patient, patient dies? It's no coincidence, man. That cat is evil I tell you.
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Old 08-03-2007, 03:29 PM   #23 (permalink)
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QuasiMondo, they don't try animals...they simply put them to death.
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Old 08-05-2007, 12:05 PM   #24 (permalink)
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Baraka,

Perry Mason called. He wants his one-liners back.

(j/k)
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Old 08-06-2007, 01:25 PM   #25 (permalink)
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Oh, that's awesome, Dr.MK, awesome.

I'd be using it to scare the crap out of the bad residents.

"Oh, the angel of death is curled up on bed, Mr. Johnson. I guess next time you'll eat your damn green beans, huh?"
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Old 02-02-2010, 01:07 PM   #26 (permalink)
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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
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Old 02-02-2010, 04:58 PM   #27 (permalink)
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Great. For the past week Sophia, my fave feline, has insisted on sleeping somewhere on my body during the night. What could this possibly mean?? Don't wanna know.
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Old 02-02-2010, 05:29 PM   #28 (permalink)
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I can haz confurmashun bias?

...

I read about this yesterday -- it popped up as a CBC story. Nifty little piece I suppose. Maybe the cat is psychic. Or, y'know, maybe not.
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Old 02-02-2010, 05:42 PM   #29 (permalink)
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Cats are dumb.

They're reading into this too much.

First of all, it's a nursing home. So that alone makes it a bit easier than most places to predict that someone is going to die within hours or days.

Second, it's entirely possible that the people who were near death were treating the cat with extra kindness, knowing themselves that they weren't long for this world.

...or, perhaps, the cat was able to get more table scraps from these patients because, you know, maybe they lost their own appetites while in the throes of death.
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Old 02-02-2010, 05:52 PM   #30 (permalink)
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I have been in a nursing home where there was a 29 year old patient. Did that mean he was going to die there as well? (he didn't)

If I were on my deathbed, I wouldn't make any effort to treat an animal with extra kindness if it happened to be sitting on it with me. I just wouldn't care that it was there. I'd probably be too tired to move any single extremity.
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Old 02-02-2010, 06:23 PM   #31 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Baraka_Guru View Post
Cats are dumb.
Compared to what? Us? I'm not sure where I have this regard (maybe my 25+ year subscribtion to Nat'l Geo, or something else altogether perhaps) but among the animal kingdom, cats, ranging from regular housecats to the big predator cats, are near the top of the intelligience charts, even surpassing simians and some primates.
Also, this could be a good starter point to dispel such a broad claim (and hasty): HowStuffWorks "Domestic Cats"

Quote:
They're reading into this too much.

First of all, it's a nursing home. So that alone makes it a bit easier than most places to predict that someone is going to die within hours or days.

Second, it's entirely possible that the people who were near death were treating the cat with extra kindness, knowing themselves that they weren't long for this world.

...or, perhaps, the cat was able to get more table scraps from these patients because, you know, maybe they lost their own appetites while in the throes of death.
I also think that some of us are trying too hard to overthink this study (well, featured story really) and come up with scenarios that seem all too unlikely, just to ease our thought process and say to ourselves, "well, if this, this and this play out, then this story amounts to little more than hogwash".

I don't see how feigning propped 'what-if' contemplations like the ones above helps any more than responding by saying where is the scientific basis for such a ridiculous claim as a feline harbinger of death? Neither is any more productive in ascertaining the root of the story and happenstances in which this cat has alleged fortold imminent death.

Yes, at the moment, there is no scientific evidence of a certain receptor that allows a cat to hone in on the waking dead, but that may be more as a result of us never looking close enough to care. Or maybe this is a 1 in 500,000 occurrence that this particular has been embued with heightened recptors to the lingering signs of terminal, failing health in humans. This is an ongoing eerie circumstance, and with more instances in which this cat is able to certainly provide further correct cases of declining mortality, the more intriguing (and supposedly stronger) it actually becomes.

I just take the word of the reporters and with what the hospital staff have witnessed thus far, and make my inferences from there. It's not altogether unlikely that this one cat has better senses than you or I, but to detect death? I may like to know more him in the future, even if it is found out that all cats have this innate ability, yet only this one cat was able to properly make use of it (if by only freaking out the entire hospital staff at first).
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Old 02-02-2010, 06:29 PM   #32 (permalink)
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Damn, sorry. I don't have that sarcasm mark. That SarcMark thing, or whatever.

I have two cats. Combined, they run the household.

Regardless, I think a large part of this is coincidental. Though I will give animals such as cats and dogs a lot of credit for having heightened senses that we could only dream of. Maybe that has something to do with it. Can't dogs sniff cancer and sense seizures?
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Old 02-03-2010, 12:03 AM   #33 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Martian View Post
I can haz confurmashun bias?

...

I read about this yesterday -- it popped up as a CBC story. Nifty little piece I suppose. Maybe the cat is psychic. Or, y'know, maybe not.
As I said on the other thread...

Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel_ View Post
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?

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