Care Robots Research Articles

Using an off-the-shelf platform to develop a gender-sensitive health care robot for older adults and chronically ill people

Social robots are often envisioned as companions for older adults and chronically ill people to support them in everyday life (taking medication, staying physically active, etc.). For all these tasks a high-level of personalization is required, in order to achieve satisfying support as well as a high degree of engagement to motivate people to continue a healthy lifestyle. In the Austrian project RoboGen, we wanted to achieve exactly that. Using an off-the-shelf low-cost robotic platform (Q.bo One), we extended it with a learning agent and designed the interaction in a gender-sensitive way. In this brief communication we present the evaluation results derived from a case study with potential users and semi-structured interviews with experts. Our results show the challenges that come with off-the-shelf robotic platforms and usability (speech recognition, text-to-speech output etc.), also highlight the perception of the potential users as well as how experts rated the concept.

Discrete HMM for Visualizing Domiciliary Human Activity Perception and Comprehension

Advances in artificial intelligence-based autonomous applications have led to the advent of domestic robots for smart elderly care; the preliminary critical step for such robots involves increasing the comprehension of robotic visualizing of human activity recognition. In this paper, discrete hidden Markov models (D-HMMs) are used to investigate human activity recognition. Eleven daily home activities are recorded using a video camera with an RGB-D sensor to collect a dataset composed of 25 skeleton joints in a frame, wherein only 10 skeleton joints are utilized to efficiently perform human activity recognition. Features of the chosen ten skeleton joints are sequentially extracted in terms of pose sequences for a specific human activity, and then, processed through coordination transformation and vectorization into a codebook prior to the D-HMM for estimating the maximal posterior probability to predict the target. In the experiments, the confusion matrix is evaluated based on eleven human activities; furthermore, the extension criterion of the confusion matrix is also examined to verify the robustness of the proposed work. The novelty indicated D-HMM theory is not only promising in terms of speech signal processing but also is applicable to visual signal processing and applications.

EFFECTS OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE ON THE FUTURE OF HEALTH: A QUALITATIVE STUDY AMONG UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

To determine the opinions of university students about the effects of artificial intelligence on the future of nursing and healthcare. Artificial intelligence-generated changes will have a major impact on healthcare and nursing. In-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with university students. The study included 12 senior-level students’ participants, who were selected by simple random sampling from different departments of Turkish universities in Istanbul. The data were analyzed using qualitative thematic analysis. The participants defined artificial intelligence in terms of robots, robotized intelligence, machine learning and personal assistants. The participants listed the effects of artificial intelligence on nursing as a decrease in the number of nurses, a reduced workload for nurses, more effortless patient follow-up, a decreased margin of error, the use of robots for patient transport, the use of robots to position patients, the use of robots to measure vital signs, the use of robots in psychomotor skill training, use of robots in surgical operations, use of robots in elderly care and follow-up. In line with these results, it can be recommended that new subjects on artificial intelligence and its role in the future of healthcare be added to relevant educational programs. Nurse educators should develop courses in the curriculum that will increase student awareness of artificial intelligence.

Assistant nurses and orientation to care robot use in three European countries

ABSTRACT This study investigates assistant nurses’ views on and needs for orientation to care robot use in three European countries. The use of care robots is gradually being incorporated into welfare services. Orientation to care robot use (in short, introduction to the use of the care robot technology) has thus become a key issue for care services. A survey was sent to assistant nurses in Finland, Germany, and Sweden, to which 302 participants responded (Finland n = 117; Germany n = 73; Sweden n = 112). Only 11.3% of assistant nurses had experience of giving orientation to care robot use to older adults or colleagues, but over 50% were willing to do so. Those with experience of using care robots should take part in orientation. Orientation to care robot use should be seen as part of care management and an issue that may affect the whole organisation. Management should, firstly, allow assistant nurses to get to know care robots by offering information, and secondly, consider with the assistant nurses the ways care robots can change their work and the implications of this change. Emphasising the social factors and practical orientation to care robot use extends the previous theories and perspectives of technology acceptance, adoption and diffusion.

Care robot research and development plan for disability and aged care in Korea: A mixed-methods user participation study

ABSTRACT The population of Korea is aging rapidly, and this has led to a care burden for caregivers. Without adequate caregivers to address the increased burden, people with significant disabilities and older adults with disabilities who have greatly reduced mobility are at risk. The aim of this study was to determine suitable types of care robots for care applications in Korea and formulate a strategy for a future care robot R&D plan through a user participation study. We categorized nine types of care robots that are suitable for the care needs in Korea. By adopting a mixed research methodology involving user participation, we conducted discussions with caregivers, care receivers, and other stakeholders under a public-private-people partnership model. We also identified five primary strategies for care robot R&D: (1) intensive investment to match the needs of people with very severe disabilities to care robot technologies, particularly for transfer, repositioning, toileting, and feeding; (2) translational research and technology development; (3) realization of smart-care through fourth industrial revolution (i.e., digital) technologies; (4) user-centered research with stakeholders; and (5) building of a care robot ecosystem. The formulated plan would be shared with other developers and clinical experts to drive development of suitable care robots.

The Ethical Governance for the Vulnerability of Care Robots: Interactive-Distance-Oriented Flexible Design

The application of caring robots is currently a widely accepted solution to the problem of aging. However, for the elderly groups who live in gregarious residences and share intelligence devices, caring robots will cause intimacy and assistance dilemmas in the relationship between humans and non-human agencies. This is an information-assisted machine setting, with resulting design ethics issues brought about by the binary values of human and machine, body and mind. The “vulnerability” in risk ethics demonstrates that the ethical problems of human institutions stem from the increase of dependence and the obstruction of intimacy, which are essentially caused by the increased degree of ethical risk exposure and the restriction of agency. Based on value-sensitive design, caring ethics and machine ethics, this paper proposes a flexible design with the interaction-distance-oriented concept, and reprograms the ethical design of caring robots with intentional distance, representational distance and interpretive distance as indicators. The main purpose is to advocate a new type of human-machine interaction relationship emphasizing diversity and physical interaction.

Decision-makers’ attitudes toward the use of care robots in welfare services

The purpose of this study was to investigate the attitudes of decision-makers toward the use of care robots in welfare services. We investigated their knowledge regarding the use of care robots in welfare services as well as their attitudes toward using robots in their own care and in the care of various user groups, for example, children, youths, and older people. We conducted an online survey with a range of Finnish decision-makers as respondents (N = 176). The respondents were divided into two groups: service actors (n = 104) and research and development (R&D) actors (n = 72). The respondents did not regard themselves as having much knowledge about robotics; however, the results showed that the R&D actors had more overall knowledge of the use of robots than the service actors. The R&D actors were found to be more willing to accept a robot as part of their own care as well as part of the care for various user groups. The contribution of this study is a better understanding of the views of the decision-makers who are or will be in charge of the acquisition of technological devices in welfare services.

Assessing the Acceptability of a Humanoid Robot for Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementia Care Using an Online Survey

In this work, an online survey was used to understand the acceptability of humanoid robots and users’ needs in using these robots to assist with care among people with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD), their family caregivers, health care professionals, and the general public. From November 1, 2020 to March 13, 2021, a total of 631 complete responses were collected, including 80 responses from people with mild cognitive impairment or ADRD, 245 responses from caregivers and health care professionals, and 306 responses from the general public. We carried out detailed caparisons between people with ADRD, caregivers, and general public for their opinions about robot acceptance, robotic functionality, usability, and ethical issues. Overall, people with ADRD, caregivers, and the general public showed positive attitudes towards using the robot to assist with care for people with ADRD. The top three functions of robots required by the group of people with ADRD were reminders to take medicine, emergency call service, and helping contact medical services. Additionally, we included a discussion of the comments, suggestions, and concerns from the caregivers and the general public. We recognized common concerns raised by the participants, including the cost of the robot, the machine-like voice of the robot, and reduced acceptability of the robot by people with ADRD due to cognitive deficit. The results of this article are of significant relevance for the applications of social robotics in dementia care and for biomedical interventions related to AI and robotics in healthcare. Moreover, the discussions on potentials and limitations identified in this article will shed light for future design, development, and evaluation of socially assistive robots for people living with dementia.

The entwinement of policy, design and care scripts: Providing alternative choice-dependency situations with care robots.

The use of robots to assist feeding has become important for people with an impaired arm function. Yet, despite large-scale dissemination strategies, it has proven difficult to sustain the use of this technology. This ethnographic study draws on the script approach to discuss the use of robots to assist feeding. The empirical work was done at locations in Denmark and Sweden. Drawing on document studies, interviews, observation of meals and video footage, we discuss (1) policy strategies promoting ideas such as self-reliance; (2) design visions promoting ideas such as empowerment; (3) and three scripts of care: (a) the script of choice, (b) the script of eating alone and (c) the script of eating together. We argue that scripts entwine and give rise to and prevent the use of robots. The study contributes to the script literature and the care robot literature by substantiating that care robots may generate choice-dependency situations for users. Rather than the somewhat overflowing 'self-reliance' and 'empowerment', alternative configurations of choice and dependency emerge, in which some situations fit users better than others. We conclude that although sustaining the use of feeding robots is difficult, in some cases, useful choices arise for both end-users and care providers.

Distributed Measurement of Deformation Magnitude and Location with a Pair of Soft Sensors

Skin‐like sensitivity, or the capability to recognize tactile information, is essential for future robots in elder care, search and rescue, entertainment and other applications involving unstructured environments. In this paper, we propose the design of a flexible one‐dimensional pressure‐sensing system that can localize deformation along a long strip and measure its magnitude with an integrated pair of sensors. The sensor system is fabricated with piezoresistive conductive foils and copper sheets encapsulated by adhesive tape with a total thickness of 0.7 mm. For the purpose of demonstration, the sensor is used to monitor the location and magnitude of kink deformation of an inflatable tube. Finite‐element modeling and simulation are conducted to investigate the behavior of the soft sensor system when subjected to kink deformation. The model‐predicted sensor output achieves good agreement with the experimental data for different deformation magnitudes. Finally, extensive experiments on a sensor prototype with dimensions of mounted on an inflatable tube are conducted to demonstrate the capability of the proposed scheme in simultaneous measurement of deformation location and magnitude. It is shown that the specific design approach minimizes the coupling of location and magnitude measurements, resulting in minimal complexity for data processing.

Information Security in Medical Robotics: A Survey on the Level of Training, Awareness and Use of the Physiotherapist.

Cybersecurity is becoming an increasingly important aspect to investigate for the adoption and use of care robots, in term of both patients’ safety, and the availability, integrity and privacy of their data. This study focuses on opinions about cybersecurity relevance and related skills for physiotherapists involved in rehabilitation and assistance thanks to the aid of robotics. The goal was to investigate the awareness among insiders about some facets of cybersecurity concerning human–robot interactions. We designed an electronic questionnaire and submitted it to a relevant sample of physiotherapists. The questionnaire allowed us to collect data related to: (i) use of robots and its relationship with cybersecurity in the context of physiotherapy; (ii) training in cybersecurity and robotics for the insiders; (iii) insiders’ self-assessment on cybersecurity and robotics in some usage scenarios, and (iv) their experiences of cyber-attacks in this area and proposals for improvement. Besides contributing some specific statistics, the study highlights the importance of both acculturation processes in this field and monitoring initiatives based on surveys. The study exposes direct suggestions for continuation of these types of investigations in the context of scientific societies operating in the rehabilitation and assistance robotics. The study also shows the need to stimulate similar initiatives in other sectors of medical robotics (robotic surgery, care and socially assistive robots, rehabilitation systems, training for health and care workers) involving insiders.

No thank you to humanized robots: attitudes to care robots in elder care services

ABSTRACT The growing older population will increase the demands on the health and welfare systems, including elder care services. One way of meeting these growing service needs is to shift from traditional care services to technologically oriented services. Robotic innovations are gradually being introduced to elder care services. The aim was to explore attitudes toward the use of care robots in elder care services – specifically focusing on situations and interaction, influence, and emotions in interaction with care robots. Data were obtained from visitors at a welfare technology fair (n = 124). The results show that the most negative attitudes concerned if the care robots were humanized and had emotions. The attitudes toward interacting with care robots in general were predominately positive. In conclusion, concrete usage scenarios in elder care services need to be detected, based both on users’ needs, digital literacy and on the maturity of the technology itself.

Technological risks and ethical implications of using robots in long-term care

IntroductionThe pandemic provides a unique opportunity to examine new directions in innovative technological approaches in long-term care (LTC) homes. While robotics could enhance staff capacity to provide care, there are potential technology risks and ethical concerns involved in technology use among older people residing in communal aged care homes. This qualitative descriptive study explores the technological risks and ethical issues associated with the adoption of robots in the specific context of LTC homes.MethodsThe research team including patient and family partners employed purposive and snowballing methods to recruit 30 LTC participants: frontline interdisciplinary staff, operational leaders, residents and family members, and ethics experts in dementia care. Semi-structured interviews were conducted. Thematic analysis was performed to identify themes that capture empirical experiences and perspectives of a diverse group of LTC stakeholders about robotic use.ResultsTechnological risks include safety, increased workload, privacy, cost and social justice, and human connection. The findings offer practical insights based on the LTC perspective to contribute to the robot ethics literature. We propose a list of pragmatic recommendations, focusing on six principles (ETHICS): Engagement of stakeholders, Technology benefit and risk assessment, Harm mitigation, Individual autonomy, Cultural safety and justice, Support of privacy.ConclusionsThere is both a growing interest as well as fear in using robotics in LTC. Practice leaders need to reflect on ethical considerations and engage relevant stakeholders in making technology decisions for everyday care.

Uncertainties About Accepting Care Robots: Winning Over the Undecided

Uncertainties About Accepting Care Robots: Winning Over the Undecided

Effect of impact loading conditions on soft tissue bruise injury

Previous our study, in vivo impact test assuming human-personal care robot interaction was conducted using live porcine in order to evaluate soft tissue bruise injury tolerance. Subcutaneous hemorrhage was determined by observation of hematoxylin and eosin stained tissue. As a result, bleeding occurs at the part of adipose tissue and muscle. In this study, 3-dimentional finite element analysis were conducted on simple model consist of skin and soft tissue in order to clarify the occurrence mechanism of bruise injury. FE model imitated subcutaneous structure of porcine skin used in impact test. Analytical conditions were assumed to the experimental condition that bleeding occurs at the part of adipose tissue and muscle. As a results, the part of taking maximum first principal strain is good agreement with the bleeding point obtained by experiment. The experiments and analytical results show that possibility of bleeding will be occurred capillary failure at the part of local high strain.

Assistive Healthcare Robotics – Challenges in Nursing Service Innovation: Critical Review

Healthcare robots assist older people and caregivers. Many scientists and researchers have been looking at the use of robotic technology to help not only elderly people but also their care providers. Through a review of the literature and an in-depth study of published papers, we include a timely overview of care robotics. In this study, we review what we know about the use of assistive robots in the elderly care context, their benefits and potential challenges. These humanoid resources offer a range of physical, cognitive, and social tasks in the aim of improving health outcomes. Service Science calls for understanding complex service systems, our Sociotechnical system (STS) lens applied to the use of robotics in the nursing function aims at learning the underlying trajectories of socio-technical dynamics within the nursing service system and the complexity introduced by their humanoid counterpart. This presents a significant contribution to Service Science. In essence, the research introduces the STS lens to understand the interaction between human and machine in the nursing ecosystem, while proposing learnings on a better design in practice. We focus on the current and potential future challenges of healthcare robotics as well as how such technology can help healthy aging, healthcare staff, especially nurses, and our healthcare system as a whole. We conclude that, despite the potential advantages, the adoption of care robots is still shy. Using the lens of the sociotechnical perspective and concepts of service innovation roadmaps, we pave the way for identifying factors of adoption that may influence the proliferation of care robots.

Gender Stereotyping of Robotic Systems in Eldercare: An Exploratory Analysis of Ethical Problems and Possible Solutions

Socio psychological studies show that gender stereotypes play an important role in human-robot interaction. However, they may have various morally problematic implications and consequences that need ethical consideration, especially in a sensitive field like eldercare. Against this backdrop, we conduct an exploratory ethical analysis of moral issues of gender stereotyping in robotics for eldercare. The leading question is what moral problems and conflicts can arise from gender stereotypes in care robots for older people and how we should deal with them. We first provide an overview on the state of empirical research regarding gender stereotyping in human-robot interaction and the special field of care robotics for older people. Starting from a principlist approach, we then map possible moral problems and conflicts with regard to common ethical principles of autonomy, care, and justice. We subsequently consider possible solutions for the development and implementation of morally acceptable robots for eldercare, focusing on three different strategies: explanation, neutralization, and queering of care robots. Finally, we discuss potentials and problems associated with these three strategies and conclude that especially the queering of robotics and the idea of a gender-fluid robot offers an innovative outlook that deserves closer ethical, social, and technological examination.

Joseph T. Freeman Award: Creating Synergy in Interdisciplinary Aging Research and Practice

Abstract Over 30 years of interdisciplinary practice stimulated many research questions. Early intervention research in sensory impairment, specifically vision and/or hearing impairment was heavily supported by interdisciplinary colleagues from Geriatric Medicine, Nursing, Occupational Therapy, Optometry and Audiology. Challenges and opportunities from this research created a growing interest in developing and designing technologies for older adults. Creating the need for partnerships with engineering. My expertise in aging and access to willing research participants made me an ideal research partner. Effectively expanding my focus beyond sensory impairment interventions to designing and testing robots with older adults. Currently we are testing low cost mobile robots in acute care and the community and are developing and testing a soft robot to assist persons out of a chair as well as turn and lift persons up in bed. The synergy of interdisciplinary practice and research is helping us innovate to improve the lives of older adults.

Gender and Humanoid Robots: A Somaesthetic Analysis

I discuss in this paper how robotic scientists tend to produce replicas of human bodies that are consistent with their own cultural norms by exploring how gender is embodied in humanoid robots. My focus is specifically on care robots, and their reception in the African context. I argue that since the bodies of the robotic scientists are the reference points according to which they design and manufacture robots, a somaesthetics of robotics can best reveal and challenge how gendered norms are materialised in these machines.

Appearance is not everything - Preferred feature combinations for care robots

To promote acceptance and use of social robots, the application of lifelike design features has been established as a promising design principle. The majority of research to date emphasizes a high degree of anthropomorphism with respect to robot appearance and communication to support positive perceptions of robots. However, these features are often examined separately. As a result, there has been little evidence of possible interaction effects when implementing different design principles with a particular focus on matched features. An online survey with two different samples (sample 1: random; sample 2: healthcare professionals and trainees) is reported that investigate whether certain feature combinations are preferred for care robots. The attributes appearance (human-like, animal-like, technical), size (small, large), and communication (speech, sound, text) were combined. Results suggest that communication is the key determinant of robot preference. With regard to feature combinations the survey showed an overall preference for anthropomorphic features. Furthermore, the occurrence of matched features led to an additional improvement of preference ratings. Both samples provide similar results with high correlations. The obtained findings can therefore serve as a basis for the implementation of concrete design principles for social robotics in healthcare.