Cat Living in Nursing Home Has Uncanny Ability to Predict Death

Table of Content

• Around the World with Hotel Cats
• Just A Medical Assistant Who Loves Cats poster, Wall Art, Cool Home Decor vintage cat nurse poster, girl and cats poster
• Three Uses of Robot Cats in Nursing Homes for Seniors
• Drew Griffin, CNN Investigative Journalist, Dies At 60
• Smut Books Are Taking Over TikTok And It's Just As Sexy As It Sounds

Dr. Dosa was initially skeptical about Oscar's ability, but once he became convinced, he decided to interview the families that Oscar had comforted as they lost a loved one. This book is primarily about the stories behind the patients in the dementia/Alzheimer's units and how their family members dealt with losing a parent or spouse to dementia. This book is a very easy read; I read it in two days. Dr. Dosa, not a cat expert, becomes more and more captivated the longer he watches Oscar. He decides to interview the relatives/caregivers of some of the people Oscar sat vigil for in hopes of gaining insight into the feline’s secret. It is clear from these interviews that Oscar made a hugely positive impression on these people.

To my surprise this is not really a book about Oscar, the cat. It's more about a doctor's experience with his dementia patients and their families. The doctor finds he trusts this cat and he learns to be guided by the cat because Oscar has the ability to sense when a patient is about to die. Oscar goes and curls up with them during their last 24 hours in this life and he is never wrong. If this book had been called "My Life with Dementia Patients (and oh yeah, there's a cat)", I'd have given it four stars. I was fascinated with Oscar when I read his story online several years ago.

Around the World with Hotel Cats

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. — 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. While that description might lead you to think it is a depressing book, it surprisingly is not. The author has an easy-to-read style and conveys his points using true anecdotes from his geriatric practice. I imagine that this might be a very difficult book for someone currently dealing with a family member suffering from dementia, as it very clearly states that there are ultimately no long-term positive outcomes to be expected.

When caring for her mother, Richards felt guilty about missing her teenage son’s swimming meets. 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.

Just A Medical Assistant Who Loves Cats poster, Wall Art, Cool Home Decor vintage cat nurse poster, girl and cats poster

Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper. Oscar made international headlines in 2007 after the New England Journal of Medicine published an article about him by Steere House geriatrician Dr. David Dosa. Joan Teno, a physician at Steere House, clarified that "it's not that the cat is consistently there first. But the cat always does manage to make an appearance, and it always seems to be in the last two hours." Photography Courtesy Karen Hollish/Pima Animal Care Center.The benefits for the kittens are manifold as well.

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. 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. Find out how nursing homes with cats are helping prepare kittens for the real world and enriching the lives of senior citizens. “His mere presence at the bedside is viewed by physicians and nursing home staff as an almost absolute indicator of impending death, allowing staff members to adequately notify families,” Dosa wrote in his report. He sniffed and looked at the patients but rarely spent much time with anyone — except when they had just hours to live.

Three Uses of Robot Cats in Nursing Homes for Seniors

Now, she's their most championed mascot, bringing furry joy to everyone. Teno and Dosa hypothesized that Oscar was responding to the smell of chemicals released when someone died or some other odor emitted during death. Only a few months in, the program has gotten worldwide attention, which has been surprising to both Rebecca and Karen. The success means the program will continue, when the memory care facility will help care for two litters of kittens — one for each wing. Animals bring such comfort and warmth to these hard times in our lives. This book has many ideas for families with loved ones who have Alzheimers and how to cope.

He isn’t deemed the friendliest boy, but the residents are happy to have him. (As an aside, when it’s time for me to go to the old folks’ home, my first question will be “Do you allow cats?” It will be a deal breaker if the answer is no). The staff knows that whenever Oscar settles on a bed, it’s time to call the family. Oscar was not the only animal that resided at the nursing home. Steere House was unlike other nursing homes in the area.

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I don't know what it is about books written about a special cat. In most of the books it's the author that is in the middle of the attention and not the cat and that's dissapointing, but that's just my personal opinion. Here it isn't the author, but the disease called 'dementia'. I'm a big believer of that cats and horses have some kind of sixth sense. I'm certain that cats are with one paw in the real world and with another in the spiritual world or in the underworld. This is a true story, written by a doctor at the nursing home.

He came to public attention in 2007 when he was featured in an article by geriatrician David Dosa in the New England Journal of Medicine. According to Dr. Dosa, Oscar appeared able to predict the impending death of terminally ill patients by choosing to nap next to them a few hours before they died. Hypotheses for this ability include that Oscar was picking up on the lack of movement in such patients or that he could smell biochemicals released by dying cells. Mary, the charge nurse, told Dr. Dosa that this behavior and pattern of Oscars, was not new.

But he began interviewing the families of former patients about their experience with Oscar. Using the story of Oscar's special gift, the author (Dr. Dosa) provides a moving look at the realities of this often misunderstood disease. My love for cats prompted me to read this book, but it was my love for an Alzheimer's patient that made me glad I did. Irrespective of the reason, patients and their families at the nursing home find comfort in Oscar’s presence, in the idea that the animal was there and might be there when their loved ones eventually pass.

The cat’s uncanny ability to comfort those in need seems impossible — but the way Dosa describes it, even Oscar’s supernatural skill seems unmistakably feline. That is, Oscar is occasionally indifferent and cranky. 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.

Perhaps I'm too late in this response, but I'd say 14 and up. The reading level isn't the issue - it's not challenging. But there is talk of conjugal visits in the nursing home, and the reality of dementia can be disturbing even to adults. And that's what this book is about - it's not a cute cat book (look for Dewey, if that's what you're interested in). Frankly, unless a teen is considering a health care career, or has a family member with dementia, I doubt they'd find this book very interesting. Dr. Jill Goldman, a certified animal behaviorist in California, has a different theory – that Oscar’s predictions might be a learned behavior.

If so, the reason it might be morally relevant is that empathy is a distinctly human attribute, the lack of which in us is a symptom of mental illness, such as in sociopathology. But that could be because domesticated cats—who run us, we don’t run them—have been changed as a species by their intense and continual contact with us. Not as much as the wolves we turned into dogs, but still changed nonetheless. More to the point, Oscar is remarkable because he is acting in a way that is not inherent in the feline species.