Oscar the Therapy Cat

Oscar was a tortoiseshell-and-white cat adopted as a kitten by a nursing and rehabilitation centre in Providence, Rhode Island, where he lived on the advanced-dementia unit. Staff there came to notice something remarkable: Oscar would repeatedly settle beside patients in their final hours, curling up with people who were close to death, often before the medical team recognised how near the end was.

His apparent ability was described in 2007 by physician David Dosa in an essay in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, which brought Oscar international attention and later a book, "Making Rounds with Oscar". Staff reported that he had accompanied dozens of patients in their last moments, and some families found comfort in his presence, taking his arrival as a gentle, dignified signal to gather at the bedside.

Experts have offered down-to-earth explanations — Oscar may have been responding to particular smells given off by dying tissue, or simply seeking out the warmth and stillness of patients who were no longer moving. Whatever the mechanism, Oscar spent his life as a quiet, watchful companion on the unit. He died in 2022, remembered less as a curiosity than as a source of calm and companionship in a place where both were badly needed.