Oscar (therapy Cat)

Oscar (therapy Cat)

Oscar (born 2005) is a therapy cat living in the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. He came to public attention in July 2007 when he was featured in an article by David Dosa, a geriatrician and assistant professor at Brown University, in the New England Journal of Medicine. According to Dosa, Oscar appears able to predict the impending death of terminally ill patients. Explanations for this ability include the lack of movement in such patients, or that the cat can smell ketones, the biochemicals released by dying cells.

Oscar became the subject of a book by Dosa in 2010, Making Rounds With Oscar: The Extraordinary Gift of an Ordinary Cat.