Did you ever hear about the cat who would curl up with nursing home patients, almost always just a few hours before their death? This happened in about 50 cases, which makes it more than a coincidence.
The cat is named Oscar. He is a six-year-old gray and white cat who was adopted as a kitten at the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Centre in Providence, Rhode Island.
He is independent, even aloof, rarely paying much attention to patients. He just wanders from room to room until he senses someone who needs company and comforting for their last few hours on earth. If he finds the door to the room of a dying patient is shut, Oscar will scratch on the door trying to get in.
Dr. David Dosa, a geriatrician and assistant professor at Brown University, wrote about Oscar as a phenomenon in a 2007 essay in the New England Journal of Medicine. He relates that five years of records showed Oscar was usually right, even when the medical staff disagreed over which patients were close to death.
The staff has become so sure of Oscar's accuracy that they let family members know when he jumps on to a bed to snuggle with a patient. It does not dismay family members, though, when they get such a call as Dr. Dosa assured,
"People were actually taking great comfort in this idea, that this animal was there and might be there when their loved ones eventually pass. He was there when they couldn't be."
Oscar the Cat Predicts Nursing Home Deaths, click here.
VA Medical Centers across the country have rehabilitation programs involving cats. However, it is Spokane "setting the bar with live-in cats for residents." Most facilities allow cats to visit on a weekly or monthly basis. Click here to read about Simon the Ragdoll and Alvin the Siamese who were donated by a local Spokane family to the Spokane VA Medical Center.
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