4 ms·

There was a cat named Oscar in the Steere House nursing home in Providence, RI, who was kind of a jerk. However, he had one incredible power. The advanced demen

There was a cat named Oscar in the Steere House nursing home in Providence, RI, who was kind of a jerk. However, he had one incredible power. The advanced dementia ward where he lived had numerous sick patients. Sometimes, He would jump onto one of their beds. Sure enough, hours later, that patient would die. He had a remarkable record, over 20 cases in a row were predicted correctly. It must've been smell, he sensed the deterioration from biochemical signals. Why he liked to be around death, I don't know, cats are strange!

TaupeRanger 6y ago
Sounds apocryphal or just flat wrong. A cat that jumps up on a bunch of beds in such a place is bound to do so on the beds of dying patients. The dying ones probably got more visits from doctors, family, etc. and the cat could've been responding to the presence of humans, or any number of other factors. To assume it was smelling imminent death and jumping on the bed to signal it is way beyond what you could possibly prove.
- WhompingWindows 6y ago
  It's not flat wrong nor apocryphal, check your facts, his performance was studied and published in a book and in the New England Journal -- do you think the NEJM is likely to publish pure aprocryphal falsehood? I volunteered in the Steere House and met the cat, and my close family member was a higher-up in the org and personally witnessed the cat's abilities numerous times. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_(therapy_cat) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_(therapy_cat) https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp078108 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp078108
  - jacquesm 6y ago
    It may be true. But also: it may be coincidence, there is a chance that the cat naps on the beds of people that are lying quietly, which is something that probably precedes death more often than it does not, the cat may sleep on other beds but nobody thinks much of it and so on. What the NEJM publishes is not always accurate or even true, there have been numerous examples of retracted studies so no need for the appeal to authority. If it is true then someone should figure out the mechanism and prove it otherwise it might just as well be coincidence.
  - TaupeRanger 6y ago
    It is likely both. The link you provided is not a study. How many times did the cat jump up on the bed of a non-dying patient? How often on the beds of any random patient, making his jumps on the dying patients' beds simply part of the noise? Without a real study, we can't attribute superpowers to a cat.
    - WhompingWindows 6y ago
      You think it's a superpower that an animal with an extremely sensitive nose can smell that a biological organism is emitting smells of decay and death? Keep in mind, death is a process and these are advanced dementia patients, they DO have a smell as I have volunteered in the building and met many of the patients (before COVID). This is not new to science, there are human individuals world-wide who can smell diseases, for instance the Scottish woman who a physician proved could smell Parkinson's on testing her sniffing of numerous T-shirts. Biological processes can emit smells, it's really not a superpower. By the way, in medicine, you don't need to do a randomized controlled trial to be considered a "real study". Do you think the study that found out that HIV was killing gay men in San Fransisco, a case-series study without any trial or randomization, was not a "real study"? Case series and observations are valid real studies, though not gold standards for establishing broad truths. If you get 20 Oscars and 20 normal cats, feel free to do the RCT, or you can take a moment and do some simple Googling before going full-on skpetic on a situation you don't know anything about.
  - aaron695 6y ago
    It will be fake, try reading this - http://skepdic.com/oscar.html http://skepdic.com/oscar.html What is funny is someone killed Oscar with a bed pan after the original story come out. Sure it also is probably not true (The story also sounds apocryphal), but we can pick our realities - https://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/08/19/oscar-the-death-kitty-is-no-more https://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/08/19/oscar-the-deat...
  - deathlight 6y ago
    I always come back to this clip in situations like these: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSVqLHghLpw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSVqLHghLpw
    - lgats 6y ago
      warning alarm
tmoertel 6y ago
Alternative explanation: Oscar the cat was just really good at murder.
- rbobby 6y ago
  Most likely explanation. Source: I have a cat.

TaupeRanger 6y ago

Sounds apocryphal or just flat wrong. A cat that jumps up on a bunch of beds in such a place is bound to do so on the beds of dying patients. The dying ones probably got more visits from doctors, family, etc. and the cat could've been responding to the presence of humans, or any number of other factors. To assume it was smelling imminent death and jumping on the bed to signal it is way beyond what you could possibly prove.

WhompingWindows 6y ago
It's not flat wrong nor apocryphal, check your facts, his performance was studied and published in a book and in the New England Journal -- do you think the NEJM is likely to publish pure aprocryphal falsehood? I volunteered in the Steere House and met the cat, and my close family member was a higher-up in the org and personally witnessed the cat's abilities numerous times. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_(therapy_cat) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_(therapy_cat) https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp078108 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp078108
- jacquesm 6y ago
  It may be true. But also: it may be coincidence, there is a chance that the cat naps on the beds of people that are lying quietly, which is something that probably precedes death more often than it does not, the cat may sleep on other beds but nobody thinks much of it and so on. What the NEJM publishes is not always accurate or even true, there have been numerous examples of retracted studies so no need for the appeal to authority. If it is true then someone should figure out the mechanism and prove it otherwise it might just as well be coincidence.
- TaupeRanger 6y ago
  It is likely both. The link you provided is not a study. How many times did the cat jump up on the bed of a non-dying patient? How often on the beds of any random patient, making his jumps on the dying patients' beds simply part of the noise? Without a real study, we can't attribute superpowers to a cat.
  - WhompingWindows 6y ago
    You think it's a superpower that an animal with an extremely sensitive nose can smell that a biological organism is emitting smells of decay and death? Keep in mind, death is a process and these are advanced dementia patients, they DO have a smell as I have volunteered in the building and met many of the patients (before COVID). This is not new to science, there are human individuals world-wide who can smell diseases, for instance the Scottish woman who a physician proved could smell Parkinson's on testing her sniffing of numerous T-shirts. Biological processes can emit smells, it's really not a superpower. By the way, in medicine, you don't need to do a randomized controlled trial to be considered a "real study". Do you think the study that found out that HIV was killing gay men in San Fransisco, a case-series study without any trial or randomization, was not a "real study"? Case series and observations are valid real studies, though not gold standards for establishing broad truths. If you get 20 Oscars and 20 normal cats, feel free to do the RCT, or you can take a moment and do some simple Googling before going full-on skpetic on a situation you don't know anything about.
- aaron695 6y ago
  It will be fake, try reading this - http://skepdic.com/oscar.html http://skepdic.com/oscar.html What is funny is someone killed Oscar with a bed pan after the original story come out. Sure it also is probably not true (The story also sounds apocryphal), but we can pick our realities - https://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/08/19/oscar-the-death-kitty-is-no-more https://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/08/19/oscar-the-deat...
- deathlight 6y ago
  I always come back to this clip in situations like these: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSVqLHghLpw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSVqLHghLpw
  - lgats 6y ago
    warning alarm

tmoertel 6y ago

Alternative explanation: Oscar the cat was just really good at murder.

rbobby 6y ago
Most likely explanation. Source: I have a cat.