Oscar the Cat had become the subject of an entry in the New England Journal of Medicine for his unusual ability to predict which nursing home patient would die next. Since acquiring, fame in 2007, he has doubled his number of predictions, sometimes with better ability than the caregivers at the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Centre in Providence, Rhode Island, which had adopted him 5 years earlier.
Oscar isn’t very sociable, under usual circumstances, but, if permitted, will curl up on the bed next to a patient who is about to get the final call home.
Dr. David Dosa, who has since chronicled this cat’s behavior in a book, suspects that the animal might be sensitive to the ketones given off by dying cells.
Nursing home employees have alerted family members based upon Oscars visits, and those involved mainly seem to take comfort in Oscar’s presence with the patients in their final hours.
