Towards an All-Day Assignment of a Mobile Service Robot for Elderly Care Homes

Abstract

Due to the demographic change in many industrial nations, the proportion of the older population is increasing. With this increase, the number of people who are dependent on outpatient or inpatient care is also rising across the board. Against this background, digital assistive systems could play an important role for improving the situation within those sectors. Therefore, the proposed novel approach describes a possible all-day use of a mobile assistive robot within an inpatient geriatric care facility, which should both relieve the staff and provide a therapeutic and entertaining contribution for the residents. The design of the components of the robot platform required for all-day use was carried out in an iterative development process. This process was started by convening a focus group, which first analyzed the requirements and then critically questioned the current status and actual benefits. Additionally, the accompanying occupational therapists and care assistants (N = 6) answered questionnaires after each of the 32 completed assignments, which were intended to draw attention to existing weaknesses and positive aspects. The main focus was to answer the question of how an assistive robot can be used meaningfully within an inpatient geriatric care facility with the means of the current state of science and whether this platform is perceived as support by the groups of people concerned. Due to the predominantly positive response to this question, the concept presented here for all-day use could be realized. Even if the response and operational capability were predominantly positive, there are still wishes from the staff and residents. These demands cannot yet be guaranteed with the current state of science to the required high degree of robustness under real world conditions. Consequently, the components identified as still in development or conceptually conceived require further research in the respective fields.