Robots and Aging

Abstract

Rest assured, this world in which robotic caregivers are looked upon to help with our world's greying population is very much a reality. It's not a question of if, but when." Jason Walker Waypoint RoboticsRobot & Frank is a classic movie in which an aging Frank becomes cognitively impaired and his son purchases him a robot to allow him to stay at home. Frank, a lifetime thief, discovers he can teach his robotic companion to help him rob banks. While we are not quite there yet, the development of robots to help care for older persons is increasing exponentially.Robot was introduced as a term in a 1920 play called "R.U.R" (Rossum's Universal Robots) by Karel Capek. It is a Slavic word which means labor. A robot can be defined as a machine that can do work that would normally require a human to complete. A variety of computerized systems have been developed to enhance the quality of life for older adults. These include remote monitoring, systems to enhance movements, including brain machine interfaces, systems to assist or replace nursing, robotic companions, cognitive devices, diagnostic devices, robotic transporters and robotic therapist (Table 1) (1-5). These robots can be used for loneliness, social and cognitive activities, safety and security, digital health and quality of life (6, 7).Robotic nursing assistants are on the verge of becoming a key component of medical care. Nursebots have been developed to help with the transfer of individuals from bed to chair. Robots can assist with feeding individuals. Robots can dispense medicines in nursing homes and hospitals. Research into the role of intelligent sensors has made major advances in the last decade (8-10). These sensors can create health alerts that can alert nurses when a patient is getting out bed without assistance to complex systems that measure a person's gait and fall risk. They can also detect persons who have fallen. Sensors can measure the use of the refrigerator or toilet and the time spent sleeping. Robots can also be used to disinfect the environment using xenon rays or ultra violet light.A second role of robots is to provide companionship and to improve the ability of older persons to live independently (11). Numerous studies have shown that robotic animal companions, such as AIBO the dog, PARO the seal and Hasbro

A tutorial on discourse analysis in healthy and pathological ageing

“…Also, numerous new studies from the field of language technologies are trying to develop social robots to help the elderly. This has led several studies to assess robot‐elderly interaction, in order to design communication technologies as effectively as possible (see, e.g., Góngora‐Alonso et al., 2019; Morley, 2021; Rai et al., 2021).…”