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PROVIDENCE, R.I. - Oscar the cat has an uncanny knack for predicting when nursing home patients are going to die, curling up with them during their final hours. His accuracy, seen in 25 cases, has led staff to call family members once he has chosen someone. They usually have less than four hours to live. “He doesn’t make too many mistakes. He seems to understand when patients are about to die,” said Dr. David Dosa, who describes the phenomenon in the New England Journal of Medicine. “Many family members take some solace from it. They appreciate the companionship that the...

A Day in the Life of Oscar the Cat David M. Dosa, M.D., M.P.H. PubMed Citation Oscar the Cat awakens from his nap, opening a single eye to survey his kingdom. From atop the desk in the doctor's charting area, the cat peers down the two wings of the nursing home's advanced dementia unit. All quiet on the western and eastern fronts. Slowly, he rises and extravagantly stretches his 2-year-old frame, first backward and then forward. He sits up and considers his next move. In the distance, a resident approaches. It is Mrs. P., who has been living on the...

PROVIDENCE, RI (TDR)- Oscar, the nursing home cat who could seemingly sense the impending death of patients, was found dead early yesterday. The cat gained recent notoriety when reports of his ability to detect the impending death of the terminally ill became public. Seemingly aware that death was at hand, Oscar would reportedly climb into the bed of patients during their final hours...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — 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 they have less than four hours to live. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,290840,00.html

Cat Predicts 50 Deaths In RI Nursing Home 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. By Tom Leonard 01 Feb 2010 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 Photo: AP [Pic in URL] Dr David Dosa, a geriatrician and assistant professor at Brown University, said that five years of records showed...

In 2007, my “Pets” column for the New York Post celebrated a cat named Oscar, subject of an eye-opening article in the New England Journal of Medicine. While I firmly believe that no cat is ordinary, Oscar is less ordinary than most, and his legend is spreading around the globe. This now five-year-old tortoiseshell tabby with white markings resides in a Rhode Island nursing home, and can sense when patients are about to die. Oscar the cat stays by their side, keeping them company until they pass. Oscar spends all day pacing from room to room of the facility. Not...

WHEN doctors and staff realised that a cat living in a US nursing home could sense when someone was going to die, the feline, Oscar, was portrayed as a furry grim reaper or four-legged angel of death. But David Dosa, who broke the news of Oscar's abilities in a paper in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2007, said he never intended to make Oscar sound creepy or his arrival at a bedside to be viewed negatively. Dr Dosa said he hopes his newly released book, Making Rounds With Oscar: The Extraordinary Gift of an Ordinary Cat will put...

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, R.I. -- The scientist in Dr. David Dosa was skeptical when first told that Oscar, an aloof cat kept by a nursing home, regularly predicted patients' deaths by snuggling alongside them in their final hours. Dosa's doubts eroded after he and his colleagues tallied about 50 correct calls made by Oscar over five years, a process he explains in a book released this week, "Making Rounds With Oscar: The Extraordinary Gift of an Ordinary Cat." (Hyperion, $23.99) The feline's bizarre talent astounds Dosa, but he finds Oscar's real worth in his fierce insistence on being present when others turn...

A dose of sentimental claptrap from the New England Journal of Medicine It's been quite a week for the New England Journal of Medicine. In the current issue, we learn that fat is contagious and that cats can sense when people are about to die. Or at least one particular cat can tell. He's 2 years old, with patches of gray and white fur, and he lives in a nursing home in Providence, R.I. "Oscar the Cat awakens from his nap, opening a single eye to survey his kingdom," begins the article, by Dr. David M. Dosa of Brown University....