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| | Features | ISBN13: 9781401323233Condition: NewNotes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
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| | Description | A remarkable cat. A special gift. A life-changing journey. They thought he was just a cat. When Oscar arrived at the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Rhode Island he was a cute little guy with attitude. He loved to stretch out in a puddle of sunlight and chase his tail until he was dizzy. Occasionally he consented to a scratch behind the ears, but only when it suited him. In other words, he was a typical cat. Or so it seemed. It wasn't long before Oscar had created something of a stir. Apparently, this ordinary cat possesses an extraordinary gift: he knows instinctively when the end of life is near. Oscar is a welcome distraction for the residents of Steere House, many of whom are living with Alzheimer's. But he never spends much time with them--until they are in their last hours. Then, as if this were his job, Oscar strides purposely into a patient's room, curls up on the bed, and begins his vigil. Oscar provides comfort and companionship when people need him most. And his presence lets caregivers and loved ones know that it's time to say good-bye. Oscar's gift is a tender mercy. He teaches by example: embracing moments of life that so many of us shy away from. Making Rounds with Oscar is the story of an unusual cat, the patients he serves, their caregivers, and of one doctor who learned how to listen. Heartfelt, inspiring, and full of humor and pathos, this book allows readers to take a walk into a world rarely seen from the outside, a world we often misunderstand. Praise for Making Rounds With Oscar "I love this book -- Oscar has much to teach us about empathy and courage. I couldn't put it down."
-Sarah Gruen, author of Water for Elephants "At its heart, Dosa's search is more about how people cope with death than Oscar's purported ability to predict it."
-The Associated Press "Beautifully written, heartwarming [...] Told with profound insight and great respect for all involved, this is more than just a cat story (although it will appeal to fans of Vicki Myron's Dewey)."
-Library Journal "You'll be moved."
-People | |
| | Product Details | | Author: | David Dosa | | Hardcover: | 240 pages | | Publisher: | Hyperion | | Publication Date: | February 02, 2010 | | Language: | English | | ISBN: | 1401323235 | | Product Length: | 8.68 inches | | Product Width: | 5.42 inches | | Product Height: | 0.78 inches | | Product Weight: | 0.78 pounds | | Package Length: | 9.3 inches | | Package Width: | 6.4 inches | | Package Height: | 1.0 inches | | Package Weight: | 0.85 pounds | | Average Customer Rating: |  based on 184 reviews |
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| | Customer Reviews | Average Customer Review: ( 184 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
120 of 127 found the following review helpful:
 A very special cat Jan 28, 2010
By M&M
Oscar is one of several cats who live at Steere House nursing home. All of these cats provide companionship and love for the residents, but only Oscar has the special talent of being able to sense when people are nearing the end of their lives. The nurses were the first ones to figure it out as they noticed how frequently he showed up just at the right time.
No one knows how he does it, but when he detects that someone is near dying, he takes up residence on their bed and usually stays until the funeral director comes to collect the body. During this time, he also offers comfort to the family who are there to be with their loved one during this transition. When there's no one to sit with the patient, Oscar maintains a solitary vigil. No one dies alone on Oscar's watch.
People who love their pets probably won't question Oscar's abilities, but one of the doctors who works there was a bit of a skeptic. This book is the result of his interviews with family members and staff who shared their experiences with him. Over and over they told Dr. Doza how much the gift of Oscar's presence had meant to them during a very difficult time. Most people who have cats know the comfort they can bring when they curl up next to you in bed and share their warmth. It's as if Oscar's being there normalizes the events and removes some of the fears.
All of the patients on Oscar's floor are in the final stages of dementia, usually due to Alzheimer's. Experience and research have shown that two things are often able to break through the haze that envelops them - music and animals. In the process of telling Oscar's story, Dr. Doza also gives us insight into this very scary disease. If raising a child is about watching them learn skills, living with an Alzheimer's patient is the opposite - they are slowly unlearning them. Each loss is a form of good-bye. While this book doesn't make the disease any less scary, it does offer comfort and hope for those affected by it.
We may never know just how it works - how Oscars knows just the right time to show up. Maybe all we really need to know is just that he does.
70 of 72 found the following review helpful:
 Even better than you think! Feb 01, 2010
By Rushmore
OK so here is this book with this cool cat on the cover, and you think there is something neat about the whole concept. Maybe you have already heard there is this cat that knows when people are going to die. Well, it's way more than that. This book, written by a doctor who is not actually a cat person, is more of a tribute to those creatures, human as well as feline, who allow advanced dementia patients to die with dignity.
I imagine that Steere House will not be lacking for residents after this moving depiction. Needless to say, it is heart-wrenching for any family member to place his/her loved one in a nursing home, probably more so when the loved one has dementia. What a gift to know that Steere House exists, where the staff is compassionate, even loving, and treats their residents like family. Where a cat moved in while the building was still under construction, and the management took it as a sign that animals were meant to live there along with the patients. Personally, I find dementia to be a pretty scary topic and generally try not to think about it. The author is a geriatrician who makes it real, even if still mysterious. He interviews family members who speak courageously and honestly about losing their loved ones, and how it helped to have Oscar there at the end.
I learned that hospice is not just for the very end of life, and it is about much more than medical care.
I learned that people who refuse to eat at the natural end of their lives are not starving themselves.
I learned that there is a lot we don't know about dementia, but we are learning more all the time.
Dr. Sosa writes in a very easy, straightforward style. His patients and their families are very lucky people.
I can't recommend this book highly enough. It made me laugh and, yes, cry, but mostly it just made me feel better in general. Losing a loved one to dementia is about the most horrible experience one can contemplate, but afer reading this book I feel like I could cope. And Oscar is a pretty amazing cat too.
79 of 83 found the following review helpful:
 Good Book, Misleading Title Feb 04, 2010
By litaddiction
I loved geriatrician David Dosa's 2007 essay in the New England Journal of Medicine -- about Oscar the cat, who by then had seemingly predicted, within hours, the impending deaths of dozens of residents on the dementia unit of a Rhode Island nursing home. He'd been dubbed the "grim reap-purr" and I was thrilled to see MAKING THE ROUNDS WITH OSCAR: THE EXTRAORDINARY GIFT OF AN ORDINARY CAT and, from that title, eager to read what promised to be an expansion of the essay. So first, to be clear: this book is not much about the cat.
In fact, there might be a mere cumulative total of 20 pages about Oscar. Rather, the book is one part memoir of the doctor and his geriatric practice; one part profile of the dementia unit's charge nurse; and eight parts profiles of the residents and their families, with a dollop about the end-of-life comfort provided to them by Oscar. Nor does Dosa explore (beyond a couple sentences) the source of Oscar's instinct -- the theories and research about the physiology of dying and animals' amazing sense abilities.
That said, I'm going to take a sharp turn and say that I liked the book it actually *is*, and that it's an important book for the elderly and (especially) their caregivers to read. Dosa is frank about the fear, denial, frustration and guilt inherent in caregiving generally, and specifically in losing a loved one in "the long goodbye" of dementia. He touches on the inadequacies of doctors and the healthcare system and the importance of realistic end-of-life directives. And there are takeaways: that simple diversion is more effective than trying to reign someone in from their altered reality; that it's important to interact according to who the person is now (in dementia) rather than who they were; and that it's most important to simply "be there" rather than necessarily interacting at all. Recommended.
47 of 55 found the following review helpful:
Dying Slowing With Dementia....... Jan 31, 2010
By Kiwi
The cover of this book has a beautiful photo of Oscar, who is a resident kitty at Steere House nursing home. Oscar has the same gifts as most animals: an understanding of two different dimensions and life unfolding in each one of them. There is no death. But he serves to guide the spirit to the other side with dignity and compassion.
Now, if you think this book is really about Oscar and his abilities, you'd be wrong. It's really a way for the author to make us aware of the chronic diseases called Alzheimer's, Dementia and Lewy Body Dementia (LBD). Even more so, it's an understanding that people do not recover from these diseases and should be able to pass into spirit with grace. The behavior of the caretakers; children, spouses, siblings, etc., has been brought under a microscope throughout the book. We see their helplessness, fear and unacceptance to let go. They're wrong to argue for more tests and treatments. They're lost in a sea of chaotic emotion.
I'm a big believer in end-of-life choices and releasing souls with honor. Anyone who is in or will soon be in a position of caretaker, will absorb great wisdom from this author's words and advice. I praise him for bringing this crucial issue to the forefront and for running this motif throughout the book.
If it weren't for Oscar, this book would not have been written. We owe our gratitude to the enlightened one.
8 of 8 found the following review helpful:
More about the last days of dementia than Oscar the Cat Feb 05, 2010
By Jill Florio
"Reuse, reduce, recycle!"
Making the Rounds with Oscar is a thoughtful memoir-type book about what the end of the road is like for patients with dementia in a nursing home. The author makes a point of stating his book is NOT an actual memoir, that names are changed and certain families are composites. Dr Dosa's first person perspective is not uniformly adhered to. The timeline is a little muddled.
None of these small matters detract from the apparent storyline - Making the Rounds with Oscar certainly reads like a memoir, and a decent one too. The reader slowly falls in love with the extended family at Steere House; a family that includes patients, staff, the patients' stricken (and desperately deluded) family members - and, of course - the resident cats of the end-stage dementia third floor of Steere House.
Oscar, the cat who is nominally the star of the book, makes his rare, mysterious, but well timed appearances at the very end of a patient's life.
I wanted more cat story. More about Oscar and Maya and even the first floor cats. The book sells itself as a story about an ordinary cat with an extraordinary gift for zeroing in on the moment of human death.
Was this to market the 223-page book towards animal lovers, cat fanciers and paranormal-junkies?
In reality the book is more about the final stages for Alzheimer's patients: how doctors, nurses and families make choices in handling this incurable disease when the last possible surgical options offer no real hope. Dr Dosa deals daily with heartbroken husbands and irrationally rationalizing children.
The doctor and his nurses grapple with the philosophical implications of caring for a patient whose body stills hangs on, long after the personality flew far, far away.
This is deep and interesting stuff, and well worth reading for families finding themselves faced with dementia in a loved one. Some pearls of wisdom in learning to cope are scattered in peoples' stories (learning to playact, surrounding the loved one with sensory input that just reaches past the failed memory barrier, celebrating the small victories without getting carried away about a cure that will never come). I will absolutely buy a copy of this book for any friend with a parent diagnosed with dementia.
Which leads me to my four stars, instead of a possible five. I was expecting a book mostly about this cat and his antics in a nursing home. Nowhere in the publicity for the book, or in the blub, is the single-minded focus on Alzheimer's even mentioned.
The official book marketing buzz centers squarely on the enigmatic cat who slithers in from the sidelines to claim a vigil over his ailing, failing patients. Oscar is one of those cats who won't seek attention from strangers, choosing to stay curled up against the dying. Though a series of family interviews performed by Dr Dosa, we see this tabby is uncannily accurate about who is actually dying on the third floor. Oscar treats his charges in the best way he knows - never allowing someone to die alone. His rounds are considered more accurate than the prognostications of both nurses and doctors in Steere House.
Dr Dosa does his best Scully as he interviews the bereaved about Oscar's vigils over the dying. In the end, he wants to believe. That the book spends 85% of the pages on dementia and 15% on Oscar is perhaps to be expected. Dr Dosa could not exactly interview the cat.
What we are left with is a book about dealing with dementia, in a unique framework of a nursing home with a special feline who provides comfort to those passing on. Kudos for the book, in what help and understanding it can bring to grieving families, and for showcasing the kindness and compassion of one very alert cat.
See all 184 customer reviews on Amazon.com
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