Monday, February 1, 2010

The Feline Angel of Death

In Providence, Rhode Island, there is a cat named Oscar who knows when someone is about to die.

Meet Dr. David Dosa, a geriatrician and professor who works with patients with dementia in a nursing home called Steere House. Meet Oscar, an antisocial cat who cuddles up with patients who are about to pass away. Understandably, Dosa was very skeptical about Oscar's talent when he first heard about it. However, 5 years later, Dosa and colleagues have totaled about 50 cases when Oscar joined a patient in bed only a few hours before the death of that patient.

When a patient is dying, Oscar is so intent on being present that if he is locked outside of a room, he will sit outside the door and meow until he is let in. Families of patients in Steere House find Oscar's behavior comforting rather than upsetting. In several cases, Oscar has been mentioned in eulogies and obituaries.

But how does Oscar predict death? There are several theories. Most believe it has to do with the smells of certain chemicals that are emitted when a person is dying. Animals have a much more keen sense of smell than humans and can distinguish this. Other theories include that animals may be able to sense sickness or even the shutting down of organs.

Steere House has several other cats in residence, yet none of them exhibit the same talent as Oscar. So why does Oscar find it necessary to be present with patients in their final hours? One theory is that Oscar is simply mimicking the behavior of the nurses. Another suggests it may be as simple as the fact that Oscar enjoys the heated blankets that are placed on dying patients. I personally disagree with the latter opinion. One story is that the nurses tried to place Oscar with a patient whom they believed was within hours of death only to have Oscar run away. If he simply wanted to lie on a heated blanket, he would have stayed. To finish the story, Oscar returned on his own to the still alive patient two days later. As the story goes, the patient did pass away a few hours after Oscar's return.

Despite whatever any one theorizes, we will never know why Oscar likes to be present with dying patients. Many people have labeled Oscar the "furry angel of death". Personally, I don't view Oscar's actions in so morbid a way. Oscar is providing comfort to these people in a time and place where they might otherwise have none. He is a gift to those at Steere House. I wish we could all be so lucky to have something as cute and cuddly as Oscar with us in our final moments. An angel of death? I think not. Maybe just an angel.

Want to know more about Oscar and his amazing talent? Check out the book by Dr. Dosa- Making Rounds with Oscar: The Extraordinary Gift of an Ordinary Cat.

9 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. This is strangely reminiscent of an episode of House...

    http://www.tv.com/house/here-kitty/episode/1256375/summary.html

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  3. I had no idea there was a House episode like that. Maybe it was based off of Oscar.

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  4. We often confuse correlation with causation in science. But maybe here we are confusing causation with correlation. Simple experiment - off the cat and see if the nursing home mortality rate decreases.

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  5. I believe that the House episode was based off of this cat. In the episode House sets out to prove what Dr. Posner suggests. I think in the end of the show he deduces that old dying people with heated blankies are awesome kitty habitats.

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  6. Although we think of cats as simply companions, cats have been observed to predict things that humans cannot. I heard pets, including cats, just before the earthquake in Haiti felt the compression shocks that otherwise were unnoticable to humans. The animals ran out of houses and to safety just before the earthquake hit

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  7. I did read a lot of similar articles. Animals have been known to predict natural disasters, weather (from rainstorms to a tornado), and even seizures. There is a case of a woman in England I believe whose dog will warn her 40 minutes before she has a seizure.

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  8. Well, I see someone beat me to posting that this was in an episode of House.
    And I read somewhere that trade ships would keep cats on board because they could sense approaching bad weather before the crew, especially lightning storms.

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  9. There was an old episode of Happy Days about pets sensing coming tornados. Woah, did I just prove how old I am. Never heard of Happy Days? - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Days

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