Cat predicts 50 deaths in RI nursing home

Telegraph ^ | February 1, 2010 | Tom Leonard

[C19fan]

A cat with an uncanny ability to detect when nursing home patients are about to die has proven itself in around 50 cases by curling up with them in their final hours, according to a new book.

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.

[C19fan]

Nice thought these people in the last hours of their life are not alone.

[Kartographer]

Can we take up a collection to send Oscar to Washington?

[Redcloak]

They already did this on House.

[cripplecreek]

I hate to say it but this shouldn’t be a tough call in a nursing home.

[1rudeboy]

Nice thought these people in the last hours of their life are not alone.

Unless the cat is murdering them all.

[SirJohnBarleycorn]

Have they checked to make sure the cat isn’t somehow pulling plugs out of the wall sockets?

[ZX12R]

I hate to say it but this shouldn’t be a tough call in a nursing home.

LOL! I think Oscar just prefers the bed that is very still.

[Anitius Severinus Boethius]

nom nom nom, ur soulz they haz a flavor

[cripplecreek]

You’re probably pretty close to right. A bed with someone who doesn’t mess with the cat looking for a warm spot to sleep.

[TWfromTEXAS]

I would shoot that cat if he started towards my room!!!

[cripplecreek]

Oscar, eater of souls.

[Let's Roll]

Yes, but it’s still a prediction that the medical experts familiar with the patients missed.

[SnakeDoctor]

There was an episode of House about this.

http://house.wikia.com/wiki/Here_Kitty

Turns out the cat was drawn to feverish people and heated blankets.

SnakeDoc

[DYngbld]

Did they all have cat allergies?
I think if I lived there would get a puppy.

[Malsua]

Grip reaper cat. How long before people club it to death as it peeks in someone’s room?

[FReepaholic]

...ability to detect when nursing home patients are about to die has proven itself in around 50 cases by curling up with them in their final hours...

Was he curling up on their faces?

[Slings and Arrows]

[Texas resident]

Proof that cats are evil.

[battlecry]

http://sayinggoodbyemovie.com/

[Between the Lines]

Do the residents dread seeing the cat come towards their rooms?

Is it possible that some just give up on living if the cat comes into the room?