Employing Socially Assistive Robots in Elderly Care

Abstract

Recently, it has been considering robotics to face world population aging. According to the WHO, in 2050 there will be about 2.1 billion people over 60 years old worldwide causing a persistent growing need of assistance and a shortage of manpower for delivering congruous assistance. Therefore, seniors' QoL is continuously threatened. Socially Assistive Robotics proposes itself as a solution. To improve SARs acceptability, it is necessary to tailor the system's characteristics with respect to the target needs and issues through the analysis of previous and current studies in the HRI field. Through the examination of the state of the art of social robotics in elderly care, past case studies and paper research about SARs' efficiency, it has been proposed two potential solution examples for two different scenarios, applying two different SARs: Pepper and Nao robots.

Social Robots for Meaningful Seated Activities: Acceptance & Use by Older Adults

“…This is consistent with Feil-Seifer & Mataric [19] and Kyong et al [20], who demonstrated that SAR deployment among older adults can positively influence motivation to engage in an exercise routine. Furthermore, Macis et al [21], demonstrated that the deployment of a SAR among older adults can improve the motivation to engage and maintain a daily stretching and tai chi routine. Pharmacological disbursement is another area where SARs have been deployed with effectiveness.…”

Do Socially Assistive Robots Help in Caring for Elderly Patients with Frailty or Mild Cognitive Impairment?

“…This technology is continuously evolving and has become increasingly promising in the last decade. SARs have been shown to assist physical care delivery for older adults thereby demonstrating the potential to reduce the burden on formal and informal caregivers (Macis et al, 2022). Prominent amongst these SARs are social companion robots, which are designed to forge a close interaction with humans in order to reduce loneliness and thus mental stress.…”