A toy for an old lady
UK introduces humanoid robots into nursing homes
Stepan Ikaev, Hi-tech+
Engineers from Softbank Robotics, developers of Pepper robots, together with scientists from The University of Bedfordshire tested the invention in one of the nursing homes under the leadership of Advinia Healthcare.
As reported by The Guardian, an experiment showed that elderly people who communicated with robots for 18 hours for two weeks were more likely to be in a good mood, showed high results in mental health tests, and also felt less lonely.
Pepper robots were not created to replace medical workers caring for the elderly, and cannot provide physical support in nursing homes – humanoids move autonomously on wheels, and upper manipulators play only a visual role. However, according to representatives of Softbank Robotics, Pepper is able to solve an equally important task – robots help to survive periods of loneliness when a guest has no visitors, and nurses are busy.
The current generation of robots is designed with "cultural competence" in mind and is able to support a simple dialogue, recognize basic human emotions, turn on your favorite music, help you learn a new language and remind you of your plans for the day or schedule of medication. Moreover, during the dialogue, robots can ask about a person's biography and demonstrate a "live" reaction.
The participants of the experiment stated that the robots also had disadvantages – conversations seemed too superficial and devoid of human individuality, and intrusive gestures were too distracting from communication. Softbank engineers are going to fix the bugs in the next updates. At the same time, Advinia Healthcare employees, who provided the testing site, announced plans to scale the project.
"This is the only AI that is able to provide open communication between robots and elderly people. Now we are working to start using robots in everyday life so that it can really help the elderly and their families," said Sanjeev Kanoria, Chairman of Advinia Healthcare.
The initiative of Sofbank Robotics, Advinia Healthcare and The University of Bedfordshire has proved particularly relevant during the coronavirus pandemic. Nursing homes were forced to establish new rules for visitors due to social distancing measures and almost completely cut off guests from the outside world.
Earlier, similar experiments took place in Japan and the USA. In the first case, robots went to 5,000 nursing homes and provided moral and physical support to patients, and in the second, scientists from Washington State University has developed a robotic system for performing household tasks.
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