An elderly woman languishes gently and strokes the white fur of her leg. When it lifts its head, its dark eyes and a friendly buzz. "He's fine," said 85-year-old Teresa McDaniel. "I always like animals." But it's not really animals. Residents and staff in the sunny retirement community are home to McDaniel. There is already a robotic device called Paro, a Japanese pet inventor who lives as a home for elderly care homes. Designed like a cute baby harp seal, paro, is a new interactive or "social assisted" robot, university researchers and technology companies also designed for people with special needs, such as suffering from dementia Older people, children with autism, and adults suffer from stroke or other conditions. Aluminum Electric Wheelchair,Electric Wheelchair Pricing,An Electric Wheelchair,Aluminum Wheelchairs Ningbo Baichen Medical Devices CO.,ltd , https://www.bcmobilityscooter.com
Some critics are concerned that such efforts will lead to the use of robots as substitutes for caregivers or companions. But researchers say that robots such as Paro, who can calm down and socialize with people's cognitive problems, make them feel anxious or isolated. Magma Matarek, a professor of computer science at the University of Southern California, who studies human interaction with robots, said that it is important to consider the ethics of using robots. For the residents of some nursing homes, she said, "Alternatives may be staring at the floor for hours, or on a television. What's good."
Segregation is a big problem for aging elderly people, and Sunny Day activity director Katie Huffman said. She said that employees of the Memory Care Center at the Sunny View, where the residents had varying degrees of dementia, used Paro robots to attract people to leave their rooms and talk to recall, for example, about their own pets. The front porch, Sunshine, and several other non-profit organizations operating from the California Retirement Center, evaluate widely used robots, parrots, light responses, touches, motion, and sound. They spent 6,000 dollars.
During the five-month trial on the sunny day, Paro helped some residents to concentrate on maintaining engagement, and their Alzheimer's disease may cause them anxiety or wandering aimlessly, Huffman said. Some residents feel like Paro is a living animal, while others clearly understand that it is not, Huffman said. "The way I look at it is: if they react, if it is true, we want honor," Huffman said. However, there are also critics. Sherry Turkle, a social scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has warned that what she calls "man-made" relationships may make people connect to machines. Robots such as Paro, written by Turkle, can make us more reluctant to look for other solutions for their care.
Matarić said that social-assisted robots can provide valuable reinforcement and motivation. At the University of Southern California, she developed a little humanoid robot that can engage with children who have autism or as a trainer who recovers from stroke. Preliminary research shows that when people interact with physically embodied machines, they engage in more and feel better with them,†Mattarich said. And robots are not people-to-people interactions. They completely replace her and they may play The crucial role is because "we just don't have enough people to take care of our very large and growing elderly population." "We need to consider the humanitarian and ethical use of technology because of the incidence of these things," she says.