Lots of ink II: A nursing home cat that senses when the end is nigh
Well, maybe there’s a simple explanation, like anoxia-linked metabolites or other scents that allow a Rhode Island nursing home cat to sense who is next. The cat curls up with uncanny accuracy, they all here say, on the beds of patients in their last hours. Families tend, it also says here, to view the phenomenon as a comfort. The story’s a natural. That it’s in a “perspective” communication to the New England Journal just adds an extra green light for reporters who ought to ordinarily treat this with a ton of skepticism
-CP
Stories:
Reuters Julie Steenhuysen; ABC (Australia) Paula Kruger; AP Ray Henry; Providence Journal Michael McKinney and a reader makes the right comment: new meaning to CAT scan; Providence Journal Mark Arsenault; Boston Globe Colin Nickerson; WebMD Kathleen Doheny; Register (UK) Lester Haines; l
Grist for the Mill: NEJM Full Text of Article;
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July 26th, 2007 at 7:46 pm
I hope that as I write this some serious science/medical writers are taking a close look into this. So far, from what I’ve seen it’s one of those cute features that include references to “sixth senses.” I’m sure that on Sunday the story will be a topic of sermons: “God reaches down and tells the cat who to help on the way to heaven….”
Even before looking into the Tracker’s suggestion about “anoxia-linked metabolites,” if I were a medical writer I’d look into the statistics. Does the cat live in a hospice, or something like a hospice wing of a nursing home? If so, what are the odds that it’s jumping into bed at random and the patient happens to die because a good share of the patients there die soon? Has anyone done any scientific observation and recording of this? Otherwise, observers will remember when the cat gets it right; not an equal number of times it’s wrong.
If the statistics appear to show something is going on, what kind of theories do medical scientists have?
This story would be a good way to talk about how science works compared to the way ordinary folks think about out-of-the-ordinary events.
I’d nominate Natalie Angier of the NY Times to do the story (I’m in the middle of her book “The Canon.”