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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. She was convinced of Oscar's talent when he made his 13th correct call.
The 10-year-old tabby spends his days roaming the halls of Steere House and is known by nurses for being notoriously anti-social. Oscar recently received a wall plaque publicly commending his "compassionate hospice care." 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. For his efforts, Oscar has received a Hospice Champion award from a local organization, and he is frequently mentioned in obituaries and during funeral services. After Dosa’s article was published, “Oscar the cat” was one of the top searches on Google for several weeks.
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It usually means the patient has less than four hours to live. Oscar was described as generally aloof and "not a cat that's friendly to people", sometimes, for example, hissing at people when he wanted to be left alone. I remember one day this lady was awake week before she died, her family was in room with her while I was giving her med. Far from recoiling from Oscar's presence, now they know its significance, relatives and friends of patients have been comforted and sometimes praised the cat in newspaper death notices and eulogies, said Dr Dosa. Oscar is occasionally caught sleeping on the job.In 2013, Oscar nearly died himself when he suffered a severe allergic reaction that caused his heart to stop for several seconds. Fortunately, his brief foray to the other side doesn’t seem to have affected his supernatural abilities.
Dosa does not explain Oscar scientifically in his book, although he theorizes the cat imitates the nurses who raised him or smells odors given off by dying cells, perhaps like some dogs who scientists say can detect cancer using their sense of scent. The nursing home adopted Oscar, a medium-haired cat with a gray-and-brown back and white belly, in 2005 because its staff thinks pets make the Steere House a home. They play with visiting children and prove a welcome distraction for patients and doctors alike. We'd give them Morphine to less their pain, they had to use tube feeding and IV since they cannot eat so they won't die hungry. I understand that they may know they're dying and want to die already.
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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. Just like any cat, Oscar is occasionally indifferent and cranky.Oscar is not the only therapy animal to have made the rounds at Steere House. Because the nursing home’s staff believes in “the therapeutic benefits of animal companionship,” it has also been home to parakeets, a floppy-eared bunny, and several dogs — but it’s safe to say Oscar’s story is the most intriguing. The normally elusive Oscar says hello to the camera.Nursing home staff sees the cat’s presence at a patient’s bedside as an almost certain harbinger of the grim reaper. Richards was at her mother’s bedside nonstop as she died. At its heart, Dosa’s search is more about how people cope with death than Oscar’s purported ability to predict it.
- 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. Oscar typically arrives at a dying patient's bedside a few hours before death, Dosa says, but sometimes a half day before. His presence has been a comfort to many family members, Dosa says. And his presence, coupled with a resident's worsening state of health, can help alert the nursing home staff to let family members know the patient may be nearing death.
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The tables turned in November 2013 when Oscar suffered a serious allergic reaction and he was taken into intensive care, where his heart stopped beating and he died for several seconds. Scientists remain uncertain whether there is any predictive basis for Oscar's talent, or if there are other factors at work, for example, an attraction to the warm blankets often placed on seriously ill residents. Such is Oscar's apparent accuracy - 25 consecutive cases so far - that nurses at the US home now warn family members to rush to a patient's beside as soon as the cat takes up residence there. While it's not known just how Oscar is able to do this, he often keeps family members company during this stressful time. His actions also may alert staff members to the impending passing of a patient, giving them time to call the family so they can show up and be with their loved one.
After Oscar had been at Steere House for around six months, staff noticed that Oscar often chose to nap next to resident patients who died within several hours of his arrival. It seemed to staff as if Oscar were trying to comfort and provide company to people as they died. "Cats have a superb sense of smell," adds Jill Goldman, PhD, a certified applied animal behaviorist in Laguna Beach, Calif. In Oscar's case, she says, keeping a dying resident company may also be learned behavior. "There has been ample opportunity for him to make an association between 'that' smell ," she says. Explaining Oscar's track record and seeming ability to "read" a resident's end-of-life stages and predict death is a mystery, Dosa and others at the nursing home acknowledge.
If kept outside the room of a dying patient, he'll scratch at doors and walls, trying to get in.Nurses once placed Oscar in the bed of a patient they thought gravely ill. Oscar wouldn't stay put, and the staff thought his streak was broken. Turns out, the medical professionals were wrong, and the patient rallied for two days. But in the final hours, Oscar held his bedside vigil without prompting.
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. According to staff at the nursing home, Oscar began patrolling the wards around six months after he was adopted as a kitten, observing and sniffing at residents before occasionally choosing someone to sit by. When the two-year-old grey and white cat curls up next to an elderly resident, staff now realise, this means they are likely to die in the next few hours. What's unusual, though, is the frequency with which Oscar chooses to spend time with patients in their last hours of life.
Angela Lutz is a writer and editor who has been fascinated by felines since childhood. She has more than a decade of experience writing about everything from health care and books to yoga and spicy food. Angela lives near Kansas City, Mo., with her husband, son and three cats.
But a cat in a Providence, R.I., nursing home, an animal shelter refugee named Oscar, seems to have a sixth sense about when residents in the home's advanced dementia unit are about to pass away. And his actions can sometimes help alert the staff to notify family members in time for them to get to the nursing home to tell their loved ones goodbye. After Oscar accurately predicted 25 deaths, staff started calling family members of residents as soon as they discovered him sleeping next to a patient in order to notify them and give them an opportunity to say goodbye before the impending death.
