A "cat scan" by Oscar predicts end of life

Oscar is a cat at a nursing home in Providence, Rhode Island. It seems to have the strange ability to predict the imminent death of some of the nursing home residents.

The whole story was reported in an essay in the NEJM. See the CNN video. Oscar now has a Wikipedia page: Oscar (therapy cat).

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References:

A Day in the Life of Oscar the Cat. David M. Dosa, M.D., M.P.H. NEJM, 2007.

Related reading:

Oscar the cat, confirmation bias and NEJM editorial judgement. Retired doc's thoughts, 08/2007.
Seizure Dogs and Death Cats. NeuroLogica Blog, 08/2007.
The Guardian: A sombre series of portraits taken of people before and after they had died is a challenging and poignant study, 03/2008.
Doctor casts new light on Oscar, "the NEJM cat", that has accurately predicted 50 deaths at a nursing home http://goo.gl/Odt7

WJM, Volume 163(3); September 1995. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/issues/124736
A Son's Photo Journal of His Aging Father's Decline - Photo Essays - TIME http://goo.gl/RVCt
The Lancet calls end-of-life care "the neglected core business of medicine" http://goo.gl/VtgeA