« Reply #299 on: September 23, 2015, 05:27:13 PM »
Oscar (born 2005) is a therapy cat living in the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. He came to public attention in July 2007 when he was featured in an article by David Dosa, a geriatrician and assistant professor at Brown University, in the New England Journal of Medicine. According to Dosa, Oscar appears able to predict the impending death of terminally ill patients. Explanations for this ability include the lack of movement in such patients, or that the cat can smell ketones, the biochemicals released by dying cells.
After about six months, the staff noticed that Oscar, just like the doctors and nurses, would make his own rounds. Oscar would sniff and observe patients, then curl up to **82** with certain ones. The patients he would **82** with often died within several hours of his arrival. One of the first cases involved a patient who had a blood clot in her leg that was ice cold at the time. Oscar wrapped his body around her leg and stayed until the woman died. In another instance, the doctor had made a determination of impending death based on the patient's condition, while Oscar simply walked away, causing the doctor to believe that Oscar's streak (12 at the time) had ended. However, it would be later discovered that the doctor's prognosis was simply 10 hours too early: Oscar later visited the patient, who died two hours later.
Oscar's accuracy (which stood at more than 25 consecutive reported instances when the NEJM article was written) led the staff to institute a new and unusual protocol: once he is discovered **83** with a patient, staff will call family members to notify them of the patient's (expected) impending death.
Most of the time the patient's family has no issue with Oscar being present at the time of death. On those occasions when he is removed from the room at the family's request, he is known to pace back and forth in front of the door and meow in protest. When present, Oscar will stay by the patient until they die, then after death will quietly leave the room.
As of January 2010, Oscar had accurately predicted approximately 50 patients' deaths.
it got dark
« Last Edit: September 23, 2015, 07:11:46 PM by gonZo »
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