Oscar, a two-year old cat who was adopted as a kitten by a hospital in Providence, Rhode Island and grew up in a third-floor dementia unit at the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, can predict when nursing home patients are going to die.

According to Dr. Joan Teno of Brown University, Oscar is better at predicting death than the people who work there. Staff on the nursing home noticed that Oscar sniff and observe patients, then sit beside people who would wind up dying in a few hours and it has been observed in 25 cases already.

When the cat starts to curl up on the bed of the patient, the staff usually start to phone family members because the patient usually dies within four hours. For his efforts, a plaque mounted on the wall reads: “For his compassionate hospice care, this plaque is awarded to Oscar the Cat.”

Photo courtesy of www.cbc.ca