Time and time again, animals have proven the ability to provide an unparalleled level of comfort for end-of-life patients. Yet what has famously transpired at House of Nursing and Rehabilitation Centering Providence, RI over the past decade has, quite frankly, still managed to leave us speechless.
What has famously transpired is the story of Oscar the Hospice Cat, known for his ability to predict death and comfort patients who will soon pass away? A story so compelling that Dr. David Dose, a health researcher at Brown University and a geriatrician working with patients at the House of Nursing, actually wrote an entire book about it.
Oscar was a therapy cat that was one of six cats adopted in 2005 by the House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, Rhode Island, U S House Nursing, which bills itself as a "pet friendly" facility that allows a variety of pets to visit and reside there, is a 41-bed unit that treats people with end-stage Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease and other illnesses, most of whom are generally unaware of their surroundings. 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.
Death prediction
After Oscar had been at House Nursing 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.
Joan Te no, a physician at House Nursing, 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."
After Oscar accurately predicted 25 deaths, staff started calling family members of residents as soon as they discovered him sleeping next to a patient in order to notify them and give them an opportunity to say goodbye before the impending death.
Oscar made international headlines in 2007 after the New England Journal of Medicine published an article about him by House Nursing geriatrician Dr. David Dose.
As of 2015, it was believed that Oscar accurately predicted 100 deaths.
Possible explanations
Te no and Dose hypothesized that Oscar was responding to the smell of chemicals released when someone died or some other odor emitted during death.
CBS News consulted several animal specialists who had various hypotheses, such as that Oscar might have smelled some chemical that's released just before death and his attendance in rooms with that odor may have been a learned behavior, or that he was picking up on the stillness and lack of movement in the room rather than a smell.
2005: Oscar’s Beginning
“Oscar was initially sort of a very scared cat,” Dr. Dose tells Crossroads Hospice about the cat’s earlier days at House Nursing, which began in 2005.
“He wouldn’t really like to come out. He would keep to himself. Often times you’d find him in the supply closet or under a bed somewhere, and it wasn’t really until somebody was near death that Oscar would sort of come out front and center.”
It began gradually. A regular therapy cat — in the dementia unit where, unfortunately, death is a common occurrence — would go about his usual cat business until, somehow, he sensed that the end was coming for a patient nearby. Oscar would essentially come out from his hiding, find the patient in need, crawl up to them for comfort and hold a little vigil in their honor.
There was something special about it.
“As it turned out,” Dr. Dose explains, “we would eventually find out after he did this several times that the people he was staying with were usually the next ones to go. One death occurred, then two deaths, and ultimately he hit about 20 or 30 deaths in a row at which point everybody started to say, ‘Wow, this is something quite unique.’”
2016: How Oscar is Known Today
People’s reactions to such a phenomenon vary. Some people call Oscar the Angel of Death; others just an angel. Perhaps Oscar exhibits some type of spiritual connection beyond what humans have yet to discover. Or maybe cats and dogs can quite literally smell the future.
“I think that ultimately your guess is as good as mine,” Dr. Dose speculates. “It could be that he’s responding to some smell when cells start to break down.”
But through all the speculation, there’s one thing we know to be true of the story: Oscar has proven to us that, regardless of how he’s able to sense impending death, he has an interest in honoring these people at the end of their lives and providing them whatever comfort he can by simply being in their presence.
Perhaps it’s something all animals can do, but Oscar’s story is unique in the fact that he has what most other animals don’t: opportunity— a home where he can put these skills to use.
If anything, it speaks to the value of comfort and care at the end of life. If a regular house cat is able to practice such, then we, as humans, should be able to make the effort in going above and beyond and seize our opportunity.
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