Psychic Cat

[Melanie]

Couldn't resist posting this one! From the BBC News website

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6917113.stm

This is the summary...

"A US cat with an apparent ability to sense when a nursing home's residents are about to die is baffling doctors."

and this is interesting...

"The case is the subject of a study in the latest issue of the New England Journal of Medicine."

Any chance one of our research ferrets could find the actual article?

[median]

Volume 357:328-329 July 26, 2007 Number 4
Next



A Day in the Life of Oscar the Cat

David M. Dosa, M.D., M.P.H.

Since this article has no abstract, we have provided an extract of the first 100 words of the full text and any section headings.

Oscar the Cat awakens from his nap, opening a single eye to survey his kingdom. From atop the desk in the doctor's charting area, the cat peers down the two wings of the nursing home's advanced dementia unit. All quiet on the western and eastern fronts. Slowly, he rises and extravagantly stretches his 2-year-old frame, first backward and then forward. He sits up and considers his next move.

In the distance, a resident approaches. It is Mrs. P., who has been living on the dementia unit's third floor for 3 years now. She has long forgotten her family, even though . . . [Full Text of this Article]


Source Information

Dr. Dosa is a geriatrician at Rhode Island Hospital and an assistant professor of medicine at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University — both in Providence


Couldn't get any further...

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/short/357/4/328

Perhaps Mongrel could help?

[Melanie]

Doesn't read like a 'scientific' article, does it? Although it does seem to be in a 'proper' journal. However, I would like to know how far this particular 'study' has been taken - it's a very common belief amongst cat-owners that their animals show concern when they are ill. Instances of this are anecdotal, of course, but a cat in a nursing-home could be an interesting case - if it's studied properly, that is.

[Dr B]

But in a nursing home....people die on an almost weekly basis????

[vbloke]

Is it my imagination, or do I remember reading an article about how dogs can be trained to sniff for cancer? Might this not be a similar phenomena?

[Melanie]

Dr B - yes of course people die regularly. Tch. This is why I thought this might be a good case study - if we could read it - the suggestion being made is that the cat only sits with people just before they die. In the enclosed confines of a nursing home it should have been relatively easy to map the cat's daily movements systematically and show that this suggestion was true - or not.

I am, admittedly, bothered by the storified quality of the opening lines, but would still like to read it.

[Admin]

Is there actually a claim that this cat does this due to psychic ability?

Of course this just looks like reports of observations of the cat's behaviour so we could simply be dealing with the usual things like confirmation bias, recall bias etc.

Having said that, whenever I see stories like this I'm never particularly amazed by them. Animals tend to have far better senses than we have (especially hunting animals like cats and dogs) so if there are physiological changes that occur in people with medical problems, particularly those that produce odours, I don't see why animals shouldn't be able to detect them when we can't.

It would be scientifically interesting if this cat were electronically chipped and its movements monitored 24 hours a day and then a correlation between its movements, sleeping pattern, and deaths in humans were looked at.

As an anecdote:

My Mam told me a story, that a friend told her about her friend (FOAF story :cheesy:), of a dog that started acting oddly around a man one evening. Whimpering and all that (the dog not the man, he wasn't married ;)) all evening long.

The man had a heart attack during the night. He survived but the behaviour of the dog was seen as a (retrofitted) warning sign.

I have no idea how accurate this story is but assuming it's true, I don't see it as being paranormal in any way. It could just be the superior senses that dogs have compared to us.

So, if this cat story is true, or at least accurate, then I would say it's down to the superior physical senses that cats possess rather than any psychic ability they have.

That would be my experimental hypothesis, but then again, I'm no Rupert Sheldrake.

[Lord Muck oGentry]

But in a nursing home....people die on an almost weekly basis????

Oh, bugger! I thought you just had to do it once, and that was IT.




:-)

[Admin]

Oh, bugger! I thought you just had to do it once, and that was IT.

Weekly reincarnation? :shocked:

I think Dr B's onto something here. ;D

[Admin]

So, the cat sleeps next to people just before they die - this is a correlation right?

So, does people dying cause the cat to sleep next to them, or does the cat sleeping next to them cause them to die? :ponder:

Correlation does not imply causation (!)

It could be either way around. I'd have it put down to be on the safe side. ;D

[vbloke]

Perhaps...

A lot of people are allergic to cats.

Cats seem to know who is allergic to them and generally hang around them in order to make them suffer.


So...

This cat, knowing that some of these people are allergic, chooses to go and sit by them, triggering an allergic / asthmatic reaction and causing their deaths.

Therefore, the cat is not sensing impending death, it's causing the deaths.

[Dr B]

:cheesy: sorry......for those of a psychic dispposition who may not have spotted the error (:cheesy:) what i meant to say was, on a weekly basis there will be deaths (different persons!!!).....;D

[note to self - don't post stream of consciousness stuff....]

[Allo Allo]

I know a nurse who nurses terminally ill people untill they die - she said that the act of death has a "smell" and she knows when her patient is going....I'm not a nurse so I don't know...

[Dr B]

But they are all going to die are they not? After all, it is the terminally ill? ???

[Allo Allo]

But they are all going to die are they not? After all, it is the terminally ill? ???

Of course - but I'm talking about the moments before the act of death (if you can call it that) :smiley:

Her patients only die once! :tongue:

[Dr B]

and the times she smells it and they dont die? :cheesy:

[median]

This story is in the Times On Line too :cheesy: with the reassuring title:
If Oscar's on your bed, you're dead


No one is certain if Oscar’s behaviour is scientifically significant or points to a cause. Dr Teno wonders if the cat notices telltale scents or reads something into the behaviour of the nurses who raised him.
“I don’t think this is a psychic cat,” Dr Teno added. “I think there’s probably a biochemical explanation."
“That is such a cat thing to do,” added Thomas Graves, a feline expert and chief of small animal medicine at the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine.
Mr Graves said that there was no evidence to suggest cats can sense death, but he doesn’t discount it for a minute. “Those things are hard to study. I think probably dogs and cats can sense things we can’t,” he said.
On a particular day detailed by Dr. Dosa, Oscar settled onto the bed of a patient in room 313. His presence sent staff off to make calls and set up vigil.
When a grandson asked why the cat was there, his mother explained:“He is here to help Grandma get to heaven." The patient died half an hour later.




And the last thing she saw was pussy, damn


One reader's comment made me think...???


Yes, but what if its the cat that's actually killing them?
Alastair, East Grinstead, UK


Heck it’s a reincarnation of Harold Shipman

:thunder:

[Allo Allo]

and the times she smells it and they dont die? :cheesy:

I don't think that happens - what's so strange about that? Do you smell farts when someone hasn't farted - or do you, after years of experience, know when someone has farted? It is connected with smell......????? - even maybe the body relaxing and farting??? I dunno...

[Dr B]

But you dont know it does not happen....because its just anecdotal and based on biased judgements of observers

I know, that you know, humans make bad observers and place more emphasis on hits than misses - this explains fully the phenomenon you mentioned earlier.

The observer only remembers the times of the smell and death - and ignores the times of the smell and no-death. This leads to what is also known as a response bias.

Of course you could always ask the person to keep a record.......::)

[Dr B]

I have been mentioning response biases and SDT a lot lately. I am not sure what people here know about it - but here is a basic user friendly application of it in a basic survey-type study.

http://www.uark.edu/misc/lampinen/read/s03/meissner02.htm

It is quite complex when you get into it - but at a basic conceptual level it is relatively simple

[Allo Allo]

But you dont know it does not happen....because its just anecdotal and based on biased judgements of observers

I know, that you know, humans make bad observers and place more emphasis on hits than misses - this explains fully the phenomenon you mentioned earlier.

The observer only remembers the times of the smell and death - and ignores the times of the smell and no-death. This leads to what is also known as a response bias.

Of course you could always ask the person to keep a record.......::)

If you are waiting for the bus - you usually know when it turns up!

Without shooting this idea out of the water - one could find out how many other nurses have this same experience - then you could test it scientifically to what purpose I couldn't imagine! - or it just might be a known and accepted thing amongst medical people ....but I'm not a medical person ...I was simply relating the anecdote to suggest a possible reason for the cat being psychic... I don't care if its an anecdote - I'm not trying to prove anything scientifically.....nor am I making any claim.

[Dr B]

i know....get her to keep a record...O0

[vbloke]

http://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com/2007/07/iz-sykik-ur-nxt.jpg

[Allo Allo]

I have been mentioning response biases and SDT a lot lately. I am not sure what people here know about it - but here is a basic user friendly application of it in a basic survey-type study.

http://www.uark.edu/misc/lampinen/read/s03/meissner02.htm

It is quite complex when you get into it - but at a basic conceptual level it is relatively simple

Mmmm - very interesting "new thoughts",

Thanks

[Admin]

http://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com/2007/07/iz-sykik-ur-nxt.jpg


:scared:

It's the "Cat of Terror"

;D ;D ;D ;D

[RubyRedRose]

That cat HAS IT!

[dalriada]

That cat is just keeping an open mind about where its next meal may be coming from.

As cats do.

Not paranormal-just pragmatic! >:D

[bindeweede]

Couldn't resist posting this one! From the BBC News website

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6917113.stm

This is the summary...

"A US cat with an apparent ability to sense when a nursing home's residents are about to die is baffling doctors."

and this is interesting...

"The case is the subject of a study in the latest issue of the New England Journal of Medicine."

Any chance one of our research ferrets could find the actual article?

Thre is a follow-up to this story, where dogs are used to identify cancers in some people, and there does seem to be some scientific basis to it, though most of the article is anecdotal.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6919063.stm

I never had a cat or dog as a child, but I remember having great fun playing blow-football with my budgie.

[Melanie]

Thanks for that! An interesting read.

[Mongrel]

Couldn't get any further...

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/short/357/4/328

Perhaps Mongrel could help?
Typical - don't get a good chance to read the boards and I get asked a question :-[

As has been mentioned this was an Essay that would have got a 2 minute slot normally, but because it was published in the New England Medical Journal suddenly "NEMJ proves cat can predict death!!"

Most of the sensible blogs have postulated mundane reasons for this, primarily confirmation bias but also the extra attention of nursing staff to a dyeing patient, the extra warm blankets and yes, smells. (They've also used it as an excuse for bad punnage and LOL catz)

Here's a few links to get you started:

Orac at Respectful Insolence has two (http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/07/the_kitten_of_doom.php)articles (http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/07/a_different_take_on_oscar_the_kitty_of_d.php#comme ntsArea)
Skepticos' (http://skeptico.blogs.com/skeptico/2007/07/oscar-cat-death.html#comments)
take on it
Finally Clark Bartram at Unintelligent Design (http://theclayexperience.blogspot.com/2007/07/cats-part-ithe-grim-specter-of-death.html) (and that's a far cooler "Kitty of Death" he's got)