[Doofy]

BBC NEWS | World | Americas | US cat 'predicts patient deaths'

A US cat that is reportedly able to sense when a nursing home's residents are about to die is baffling doctors.
Oscar has a habit of curling up next to patients at the home in Providence, Rhode Island, in their final hours.

According to the author of a study in the New England Journal of Medicine, the two-year-old cat has been observed to be correct in 25 cases so far.

Staff now alert the families of residents when he sits down next to their ailing loved one.

"He doesn't make many mistakes. He seems to understand when patients are about to die," David Dosa, a professor at Brown University who carried out the research, told the Associated Press news agency.

Oscar was adopted as a kitten at Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Centre.

The cat is said to do his own rounds, just like the doctors and nurses at the home, but is not generally friendly to patients.

Although most families are grateful for the warning Oscar seems to provide, some relatives ask that the pet be taken away while they say their last goodbyes to their loved ones.

When put outside the room, Oscar is said to pace up and down meowing in protest.

Thomas Graves, a feline expert from the University of Illinois, told the BBC: "Cats often can sense when their owners are sick or when another animal is sick.

"They can sense when the weather will change, they're famous for being sensitive to premonitions of earthquakes."

A doctor who treats patients at the home said she believed there was probably a biochemical explanation, rather than the cat being psychic.

[Dakarʒ]

Nice title. Already in the cat thread.

[Sherman Homan]

Here kitty, kitty, kitty!

[Randman]

Very good story, and not sensational at all. A bit dismayed by the copy editor who came up with the headline (though it is a good one, just off-tone for the story).

[Cipher13]

Give me real data, and I might actually pay more attention to this than I do to Lindsey Lohan's latest exploits.

[OreoCookie]

The cat of death!
Quick, feed her!

[analogika]

(Re: thread title)
That's £5 in the bad pun jar, please.

[nonhuman]

Hmm, my cat curls up next to me in bed pretty much every morning.


OH CRAP! I'M GOING TO DIE!!!

[Eriamjh]

Obviously, this cat is the cause of people's death, not a predictor of death.

It must be stopped.

[peeb]

Thomas Graves, a feline expert from the University of Illinois, told the BBC: "[cats are] famous for being sensitive to premonitions of earthquakes."

Has any serious work been done on this, or is it all anecdotal?

[voodoo]

I so knew this was a pussy thread! (of one sort or another)

V

[Warhaven]

Interesting. Well, that's one miracle. Two more and we can have the first cat canonized as a saint.

St. Mr. Tibbles

[design219]

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally Posted by peeb 

Thomas Graves, a feline expert from the University of Illinois, told the BBC: "[cats are] famous for being sensitive to premonitions of earthquakes."

Has any serious work been done on this, or is it all anecdotal?

Well, actual studies have been done. However they are not in favour of the "psychic pets":
An Evaluation of THE ANIMAL-BEHAVIOR THEORY For Earthquake Prediction
Quake: Seismology at the Science Fair

So yes, anecdotal as always.

[- - e r i k - -]

I'm in ur hospital bedz, eating ur souls.

[Kerrigan]

This is news? A glass of cold water and a little pussy will kill any old guy.

[design219]

Now I've got that damn song stuck in my head.

And Christopher Walkin asking for more cowbell.

[design219]

[dcmacdaddy]

When I first read the article the first thing that came to my mind is that they can "smell" death.

These are old, terminal patients and I would imagine the body is slowly shutting down before it dies. So maybe the cat can smell something happening. As for why that would appeal to a cat, I don't know. Unless it *is* some kind of comfort-response mechanism. It's been shown that animals in the wild--at least some primate and other mammalian species like whales--will gather round a sick member of the clan/tribe/herd/etc. as its dying. Maybe this is the cat's programmed way of responding to an imminent death (a death it smells coming on).

Personally, I would like to believe the cat is picking up on the death vibe and is seeking to offer comfort to the soon-to-be-deceased but that would be completely anthropomorphizing the cat ands it motivations. I can't logically make that claim and I don't think anyone can.

[zro]

[pooka]

I can.

The cat pissed off it's father (Satan), was sent up to earth and can not return home (hell) until it collects one hundred souls.

[nonhuman]

Originally Posted by dcmacdaddy 

When I first read the article the first thing that came to my mind is that they can "smell" death.

These are old, terminal patients and I would imagine the body is slowly shutting down before it dies. So maybe the cat can smell something happening. As for why that would appeal to a cat, I don't know. Unless it *is* some kind of comfort-response mechanism. It's been shown that animals in the wild--at least some primate and other mammalian species like whales--will gather round a sick member of the clan/tribe/herd/etc. as its dying. Maybe this is the cat's programmed way of responding to an imminent death (a death it smells coming on).

Personally, I would like to believe the cat is picking up on the death vibe and is seeking to offer comfort to the soon-to-be-deceased but that would be completely anthropomorphizing the cat ands it motivations. I can't logically make that claim and I don't think anyone can.

Maybe it's just attracted to the smell of death because it's a predator. If you left it alone long enough it would probably devour the corpses.

[ThinkInsane]

"Oh look Nana, the kitty wants to cuddle with you!"

"WHAT!?! Get it OFF ME!"

[moonmonkey]

Originally Posted by dcmacdaddy 

Personally, I would like to believe the cat is picking up on the death vibe and is seeking to offer comfort to the soon-to-be-deceased but that would be completely anthropomorphizing the cat ands it motivations. I can't logically make that claim and I don't think anyone can.

I think its more likely that the cat views the patient as a food source which is too big to handle when alive.

[design219]

I'll bet that cat has a new home real soon. If I was a resident there, I'd not want it around.

[moonmonkey]

I think the cat may be unplugging the life support machines.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by dcmacdaddy 

Personally, I would like to believe the cat is picking up on the death vibe and is seeking to offer comfort to the soon-to-be-deceased but that would be completely anthropomorphizing the cat ands it motivations. I can't logically make that claim and I don't think anyone can.

I think it's plausible. I had a cat once who would always try to comfort sad people. It's not necessarily logical to a assign a human-like motivation to the cat, but if there's no other motivation that makes much sense, I don't think we can reject the one that's left just because it sounds too human for our taste.

[Gamoe]

While it may be interesting to theorize on the cat's motives, I think the most important thing here is finding out the cat's mechanism for detection, if in fact it is detecting oncoming death (there is a chance that the cat is connected to the deaths in some other form).

I, too, find it likely that the cat's olfactory sense is sensitive and discerning enough to smell some biochemical change associated with oncoming death. This may be a similar to how many dogs can detect certain types of cancer.

[design219]

Originally Posted by Gamoe 

I think the most important thing here is finding out the cat's mechanism for detection, if in fact it is detecting oncoming death (there is a chance that the cat is connected to the deaths in some other form).

That would be interesting to know, but how would that ability be useful? Do we really want to know when our time is come? I guess maybe so family can be near, but I'm not sure I like the idea of knowing death is eminent.

[Atheist]

I'm inclined to think it's a "smell" thing. I saw a program on TV about a dog that was fairly accurate at sniffing out cancer on humans. Not sure about the seismic thing... but there seems to be lots of anecdotal evidence of animals sensing eminent quakes.

[Dakarʒ]

Wasn't there talk about animals clearing the hell out before that tsunami hit two winters ago?

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally Posted by Dakarʒ 

Wasn't there talk about animals clearing the hell out before that tsunami hit two winters ago?

Of course. That was just what it was. Talk.

Evidence however, proved otherwise. This, and other incidents (like the earthquake claim), were discussed in the National Geographic program Is It Real? Psychic Animals..

[- - e r i k - -]

And to poop the party even more:
Behavioral Response of Satellite-collared Elephants to the Tsunami in Southern Sri Lanka:

Abstract:
After the Asian tsunami the media was inundated with reports of aberrant behavior among animals attributed to a “sixth sense” that allowed them to respond to the catastrophe ahead of the impact. We present behavior data from two satellite-collared Asian elephants that ranged close to the tsunami impact area in Sri Lanka. These data indicate that neither elephant behaved in a manner consistent with a “sixth sense” that allowed an early detection of the approaching tsunami.

[moonmonkey]

Dumb elephants, its all a big joke to them.