US researchers are designing robots and cyber systems that are helping to keep the elderly active, safe and independent.
Long-term care providers served about nine million people in the US in 2014, the majority of which were age 65 and older, according to official government statistics.
But the research team is now working to introduce robotic and cyber systems to help adults be active in their homes without a need for aged care facilities.
Maja Mataric, a professor at the University of Southern California and co-director of its robotics lab, has developed a robotic assistant that can serve as a companion or a rehabilitation coach to allow the elderly and disabled to remain in their homes.
“The issue of motivating people to do their own work is critical. When we do our own work, we live longer, we feel better,” Professor Mataric said.
Marjorie Skubic, a professor in electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Missouri said: “Research has shown that if you can improve your cardiovascular health and keep physically active and socially engaged … it has great implications for how you’re going to age.
“And the question becomes, how can robots help?”
Sensor system in homes
Ms Skubic said clinical practitioners often see aging in a “step stair” fashion: elderly people remain on a plateau of functionality until an event – like a stroke, or a fall – causes a significant decline in health, dropping them to a lower plateau and the process then repeats.
Her intervention takes the form of a sensor system installed in homes to monitor a patient’s normal movements.
The system recognizes shifts in behaviour, such as a shorter gait – a sign that can predict a potential fall three weeks before it occurs – and issues a health alert to the patient’s doctor or social worker.
In addition to testing the system at a local aged care facility, Ms Skubic recently installed the system in her parents’ home for her mother’s 93rd birthday.
“If you can introduce a treatment at the right time, you can keep people up at this high level of functionality in the end,” she said. “It’s not about extending someone’s lifetime, but extending the amount of time they have good health and independence.”
For patients who have already suffered an injury or health condition, Prof Mataric’s robotic companion encourages patients to work on regaining lost mobility. The programming used to direct assistive robots is based on a decade of social science research on human behaviour.
Wearable technologies
It uses jokes and encouragement to inspire patients. Studies on wearable technologies have shown that data alone usually is not enough to encourage people to change their behaviour.
“Feeling responsible to another entity — a friend, a buddy, or a robot — makes all the difference,” Prof Mataric said.
“If you look at what drives us as humans, the social component is the only reliable thing that makes people change behaviour. But there aren’t enough people for people, so that is where we need to introduce technologies and technologies that are fundamentally social.”
Source: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
