Concept of Human-like Welfare Meal Assistance Robot System

Abstract

An increase in the number of elderly population and caregiver shortage due to the aging population and declining birthrate is one of the social issues that need solutions nowadays. It causes a decline in the quality of the nursing home as well. One of the essential services in nursing homes is meal assistance. Caregivers often serve meals to patients or elderly people. There are also other scenes where elderly people need help in everyday life. These years, with the pandemic of new viruses, Outbreaks in crowded places have been known as a significant social problem. Particularly in nursing homes, caregivers must get close to elderly people to take care of them. It can be a cause of a disruption in the nursing home environment. For these reasons, the issue we mentioned above needs to be resolved. In this study, we attempted the development of an automatic meal-assistance robot for use in nursing homes. Instead of caregivers, it serves contactless meal service to elderly people. The automated meal-assistance robot’s arm has a simple robotic structure. And the robot system has functions to detect swallowing, serve drinking water, and other features which control the robot to work safely for elderly people, as caregivers do for their services. The meal-assistance robot systematically assists nursing services for elderly people. The robot system provides a safe meal-assistance service that helps elderly people and caregivers with contactless meal services. This robot automates meal-assistance services. It is effective in the shortage of caregivers and the pandemic of new viruses in nursing homes.