Claim:
A cat living in a nursing home was believed by staff members to have accurately predicted the deaths of many of the facility’s residents.
Rating:
True ( About this rating? )
Context:
There is no direct evidence outside of anecdotal testimony from the staff of the nursing home, to support the cat’s alleged prediction abilities, but a few speculative scientific explanations were proposed.
A claim that a nursing home therapy cat was believed by staff to have predicted the deaths of many of its residents circulated on Reddit in April 2024, receiving 79,000 upvotes as of this writing.
Most of the comments on the thread were sarcastic or a showcase of gallows humor, but some displayed empathy. “I am a hospice nurse and this happens frequently with animals. They do not leave their owners’ side when they are close to dying,” one user wrote .
(Jjokes11 on Reddit)
A different person shared a personal experience of cats providing comfort during a critical illness:
Cats have a special relationship with humans. 2 years ago, I was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer, as I started chemo, my cats began to give me much more attention than ever. They would lay on my chest, purring on top of the hidden softball sized tumor. After having my entire left lung removed, I came home to recover. My cats stayed by my side but they weren’t interested in laying on my chest anymore. I’m 9 months cancer free and the kitties seem less worried about me now lol. But Keyga and Acemon are still my guardian angels.