Quick easy read.

This is an extraordinary little book, and Oscar is anything but ordinary. Dr. David Dosa writes about Oscar, a cat who lives in a nursing home for dementia patients, and his uncanny ability to know when the residents are close to death. Dosa provides a lot of valuable information about dementia and its effects - on patients AND their loved ones. He also interviews many family members, who tell of Oscar's effect on them and their parents. As an animal lover and someone whose own parent is in the early stages of dementia, I appreciated the educational aspects of this story, but also liked the respect Dosa has for the seemingly unexplainable.

makes you love cats!

I thought this book would be more about Oscar the cat but it was more about the last effects of dementia on the families of those suffering from dementia. While it wasn’t what I expected, I did like this book. I was a child when my uncle’s mom was diagnosed with dementia. I didn’t really understand what was going on but I remember it being hard for my uncle and his family to take care of his mom. It’s a sad thing, dementia, but I’m glad that Oscar was able to provide the families in this book some comfort on their love ones’ last hours. Definitely worth the read.

Audio book. Sweet story about a cat with ESP. Would have been better just to read a magazine article about the cat instead.

A very simple read, intertwining story of Oscar, a cat who famously can sense imminent death at an old-age hospice, and end-of-life stories of dementia patients and their families. A decent read, not particularly deep, but heart-warming and illuminating.

If you read the paper or watch the news you've probably seen a story about Oscar, the cat at a nursing home that goes and sits on the bed of people just before they die.
David Dosa is a geriatrician that works with patients at that nursing home, Steere House in Rhode Island. Many of the residents of Steere House live with Alzheimer's or other types of dementia. Oscar is friendly and provides a feeling of home and comfort to many, but he nevers comes and spends significant time with any resident until they are in the last hours of their life.
Dosa had this occurence pointed out to him by Mary Miranda, the day shift nurse. Dosa was a skeptic at first, but after he took Mary's advise and met with the families of the residents who'd had Oscar come, and observed Oscar's behaviour himself, he found that he couldn't deny that something special was happening.
Dosa shows us not only the phenomenon of Oscar and his empathy, but also the effects of dementia on patients and their loved ones. We see these people in one of the most difficult times of their lives, and see how caring people and animals make the ordeal more livable. Oscar is the catalyst for this story, but it is so much more than that.

I really enjoyed this book. I had seen a news story about Oscar a few years ago. He's a cat that somehow can tell when people in the nursing home that he lives in are about to die. He goes to them and sits by them until they pass. There seems to be a scientific reason for this (I won't give away the secret) but this still is an interesting story about the connection between animals and humans. This story is also the story of people dealing with their loved ones through dementia and Alzheimers. The end of the book brought a tear to my eye.

Oscar is a cat, but he is not an ordinary cat. No, as Dosa, a doctor at an old folks home where Oscar lives, soon learns, Oscar has an amazing skill: Oscar somehow senses when a person’s time is up and he goes to sit with the dying person during his last days and hours on earth.

This is one of those books that has a really really good story, but the writing is a little bit less than stellar. I realize it's by a doctor and not a literary author, but still. There were very many random tangents. He would tell about one sentence of an incident, and then do a flashback and explain everyone's background, and then go back and tell the rest of the story/incident that he started with. In my personal terminology, it was very loose. It needed more editing to tighten it up and make it just a little bit better. But it's decent as it is, and it's very good story bumps it up to make it a four-star book.