Elderly Care Robots Research Articles

Social Workers’ Perspectives on Socially Isolated Older Adults Living with a Robot Companion

ABSTRACT Addressing depression and social isolation among solo-living older adults in South Korea requires a multi-faceted approach. This study aims to explore the advantages and obstacles of a robotic elder care program by analyzing social workers’ viewpoints regarding interactions between older adults and a companion robot named Hyodol. Through the purposive sampling method, we conducted comprehensive interviews with 10 social workers who are pioneering the integration of robots in elder care. The study participants observed and compared the demographic characteristics of users and non-users, elucidated usage patterns, described the roles of robot companions, and shared remarkable instances. Overall, the experiences of these social workers underscored the positive influence of Hyodol in offering companionship, care, and emotional support, especially in circumstances where clients experienced isolation or lacked regular family interactions. In addition, social workers’ perspectives hold significant value in comprehending the genuine effects of anthropomorphism – the inclination to attribute human-like qualities and emotions to robots. Our investigation revealed the existence of two distinct modes of personification among older adults, which we have labeled as “imagination” and “projection.”

New Eldercare Robot with Path-Planning and Fall-Detection Capabilities

The rapid growth of the elderly population has led to an increased demand for effective and personalized eldercare solutions. In this paper, the design and development of an eldercare robot is presented. This robot is specifically tailored to meet the two specific challenges faced by the elderly. The first is the continuous indoor tracking of the elder, while the second is the fall detection. A comprehensive overview of the hardware and software components, as well as the control architecture of the robot is presented. The hardware design of the robot incorporates a range of features, including a perception system comprising a 2D Lidar, IMU, and camera for environment mapping, localization, and fall detection. The software stack of the robot is explained as consisting of layers for perception, mapping, and localization. The robot is tested experimentally to validate its path planning capability by using Hector SLAM and the RRT* technique. Experimental path planning has shown a positioning accuracy of 93.8% on average. Elderly fall detection is achieved by using the YOLOv7 algorithm at a percentage of 96%. Experimental results have been discussed and evaluated.

Aging with robots: A brief review on eldercare automation

Abstract Robotic solutions designed to cater to the needs of the elderly, commonly known as eldercare robots or nursing robots, hold the promise of delivering intelligent elderly care, alleviating societal caregiving pressures, and reducing financial burdens on nations. Scholars across various disciplines have delved into the realm of eldercare robotics from different perspectives. Four types of robots at the design level are currently used in the elderly care industry: (1) anthropomorphic, (2) zoomorphic, (3) cartoon, and (5) mechanical functional. They can play such roles as assistants, companions, and even surrogate pets, providing support for the elderly’s daily routines, cognitive enhancement, and emotional well-being. Acceptance of eldercare robots hinges on 3 key factors: (1) technical attributes, (2) user-specific characteristics, and (3) the surrounding social environment. The utilization of eldercare robots has the potential to positively impact various aspects of the elderly population, such as their physiological health, cognitive abilities, psychological well-being, and social interactions. However, it can also lead to social isolation, reduced autonomy, increased sense of objectification, blurred responsibility attribution, and tendencies towards deceptive and childish behavior. In addition, eldercare robots also influence healthcare professionals in terms of workload, working conditions, job satisfaction, and sense of purpose, both positively and negatively. This paper examines these research findings within the context of theories in communication, technology ethics, and medical ethics, shedding light on the multifaceted landscape of eldercare robotics.

Informal caregivers’ perception of assistive robots in eldercare

The acceptance of assistive robots in eldercare is an emerging field of research, particularly due to the longevity of the ageing population. This study aimed to advance the modelling of the value-based adoption model to assess assistive robots’ acceptance in eldercare. A group of 387 informal caregivers was surveyed. Perceived ease of use, financial risk, perceived usefulness and well-being were found to be the drivers of perceived value in the proposed model, whereas performance risk had no significant effect. Trust, well-being and perceived value were significant drivers of assistive robots’ acceptance by informal caregivers. The findings hold potential implications for policy and practice, suggesting specific measures that assistive robot firms and relevant parties could adopt. The findings offer feasible recommendations for assistive robot firms and other relevant parties to enhance trust, promote well-being and maximise perceived value in the design and implementation of assistive robot technologies. These practical measures can contribute to more successful adoption of assistive robots, benefiting informal caregivers, eldercare service providers and policymakers alike.

Research status of elderly-care robots and safe human-robot interaction methods

Faced with the increasingly severe global aging population with fewer children, the research, development, and application of elderly-care robots are expected to provide some technical means to solve the problems of elderly care, disability and semi-disability nursing, and rehabilitation. Elderly-care robots involve biomechanics, computer science, automatic control, ethics, and other fields of knowledge, which is one of the most challenging and most concerned research fields of robotics. Unlike other robots, elderly-care robots work for the frail elderly. There is information exchange and energy exchange between people and robots, and the safe human-robot interaction methods are the research core and key technology. The states of the art of elderly-care robots and their various nursing modes and safe interaction methods are introduced and discussed in this paper. To conclude, considering the disparity between current elderly care robots and their anticipated objectives, we offer a comprehensive overview of the critical technologies and research trends that impact and enhance the feasibility and acceptance of elderly care robots. These areas encompass the collaborative assistance of diverse assistive robots, the establishment of a novel smart home care model for elderly individuals using sensor networks, the optimization of robot design for improved flexibility, and the enhancement of robot acceptability.

Technologies of Care: Robot Caregivers in Science and Fiction

In the field of elderly care, robot caregivers are garnering increased attention. This article discusses the robotisation of care from a dual perspective. The first part presents an overview of recent scholarship on the use of robots in eldercare, focusing mostly on scientific evidence about the responses of older adults and caregivers. The second part turns to narrative evidence, providing a close reading of Andromeda Romano-Lax’s Plum Rains (2018), a speculative novel set in Japan in 2029, which explores the implications—ethical, affective, social—of communities of care that include non-human agents. My argument is twofold: (1) although science and fiction operate according to different models of knowledge production, considering narrative insights alongside scientific ones can enlarge our understanding of the complexities of robotic care; (2) hitherto overlooked in literary studies, Plum Rains deserves attention for its nuanced representation of a hybrid model of care, which does not discard robotic assistance on the basis of humanist arguments, nor does it endorse techno-solutionism, reminding readers that the fantasy of robots that care is fuelled by the reality of devalued human care work.

Attitudes of Israelis toward family caregivers assisted by a robot in the delivery of care to older people: The roles of collectivism and individualism

The provision of care to older people by robots is accompanied not only by negative attitudes about the implications of using robots for their care (e.g., increasing their loneliness or compromising their safety), but also negative attitudes toward family caregivers, as by transferring care to technological entities, they may be perceived as doing something inconsistent with family morals. These attitudes, which may hinder the adoption of robots for elder care, may be shaped by cultural factors – namely, a collectivistic vs. an individualistic orientation. The purpose of the current study was to examine for the first time: 1) the attitudes of the Israeli public toward family caregivers assisted by a robot in their care of an older person vs. family caregivers who provide care without a robot's assistance; and 2) whether horizontal and vertical dimensions of individualism and collectivism might explain these attitudes. An experimental study was conducted among a nationwide sample of 618 Israelis who were 18 years of age or older, using two vignettes that were randomly administered to respondents. Nearly half of the sample (49.5 %) received the first vignette, which assessed attitudes toward providing care for older people with the help of a robot. The remainder received the second vignette, assessing attitudes toward providing such care solely by their children. Participants reported significantly more perceived negative impacts on the caregiving recipient as a result of the use of a robot (mean/SD = 2.71/0.83) compared to the provision of care solely by family caregivers (mean/SD = 1.96/0.72), and they also had more negative perceptions toward family caregivers who used a robot (mean/SD = 3.49/0.86) compared to family caregivers who did not use a robot (mean/SD = 2.46/0.91). Vertical individualism/collectivism and background variables (i.e., age, education, gender, marital status) played a role in determining these attitudes. The research results provide important insights for the development of culturally appropriate intervention programs for the use of robots in elder care.

Determinants of Attitude to a Humanoid Social Robot in Care for Older Adults: A Post-Interaction Study.

BACKGROUND While there is a growing body of research examining opinions on social robots in elderly care, there is a lack of comprehensive studies investigating the underlying factors influencing these opinions. The Godspeed Questionnaire Series (GQS) measures perceptions related to human-robot interactions (HRIs). The Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment (CGA) is widely used to evaluate physical, cognitive, and social functions of older patients. The EASYCare 2010 Standard (EC) is a tool for assessing unmet needs in older individuals. TIAGo, a social humanoid robot, integrates perception, navigation, and HRI capabilities. This study aimed to identify the determinants of perception following interactions between older individuals and TIAGo, utilizing the GQS, selected CGA items, and EC. MATERIAL AND METHODS We analyzed a database of opinions from older individuals who interacted with TIAGo, based on the Users' Needs, Requirements, and Abilities Questionnaire. We examined the relationships between the robot's roles (companion/assistant/useful device), its assistive/social functions, and various characteristics of the older participants. RESULTS The study included 161 participants (mean age: 75.2±9.8 years), comprising 89 women and 113 institutionalized individuals. Positive correlations were observed between the robot's role, its functions, and the participants'; perceptions across most evaluated parameters (Anthropomorphism, Animacy, Likeability, Perceived intelligence, Perceived safety). Only a few individual correlations were found for other parameters. CONCLUSIONS The primary determinant of older individuals' opinions was their perception of the robot. Therefore, involving older adults in the co-design process of such robots is crucial. Additionally, a paradigm shift is needed in the study of humanoid social robots, focusing on successful aging rather than deficits associated with aging.

Elder-oriented Active Learning for Adaptation of Perception Intelligence in Home Service Robots

Active learning is a special case of machine learning in which a learning algorithm can interactively query a user to label new data points with the desired outputs. In robotics, active learning allows a robot to adapt its perception intelligence to a new environment with users’ help. This paper presents a new active learning method for elderly care robots to select data that is not only useful for learning but also easy for the elderly user to label. First, a series of image properties related to annotation difficulty are determined based on existing medical researches in human vision in elderly population. Based on that, a user study is conducted to determine the ground truth of annotation difficulty of images for the older adults. Second, a robust annotation difficulty predictor is developed using the results of the user study, and the difficulty prediction of an image is combined with three other active learning criteria to form an annotation difficulty-aware active learning metric, which facilitates the query data selection as the robot adapts its perception intelligence in a home environment. Third, we present an ablation study of the proposed active learning method through a simulation experiment. The experimental results validate the advantages of the proposed method.

Robots and care of the ageing self: An emerging economy of loneliness

What happens when caring for the ageing population is so devalued that robots are deployed to care for our elders? We examine the growing employment of companion robots in elder care as one response to a critical labour shortage and loneliness epidemic shared across the Global North. Reflecting on interviews conducted with robot engineers, researchers, NGO care providers and local government, we examine five robots under development or in use in the UK and the USA. We ask if machines providing emotional and social care signal a diminishment of what it means to be human or if robots and automation present a promising solution to our elder care crisis. We do not evaluate the efficacy of robotic technology but identify and question assumptions concerning what it means to be human in modernity and examine companion or social robots at a moment of crisis and the substantive reorganisation of social reproduction wrought by neoliberal austerity. We end by calling for a reimagining of elder care, in which the care of our elders is radically revalued and where robots assist and support workers in their difficult and skilled labour of care.

The Interweaving and Challenges of Ethics and Technology in Intelligent Elderly Care Robots

The Interweaving and Challenges of Ethics and Technology in Intelligent Elderly Care Robots

A Review on Usability and User Experience of Assistive Social Robots for Older Persons

In the advancement of human-robot interaction technology, assistive social robots have been recognized as one of potential technologies that can provide physical and cognitive supports in older person’s care. However, a major challenge faced by the designers is to develop an assistive social robot with prodigious usability and user experience for older persons who were known to have physical and cognitive limitations. A considerable number of published literatures was reporting on the technological design process of assistive social robots. However, only a small amount of attention has been paid to review the usability and user experience of the robots. The objective of this paper is to provide an overview of established researches in the literatures concerning usability and user experience issues faced by the older persons when interacting with assistive social robots. The authors searched relevant articles from the academic databases such as Google Scholar, Scopus and Web of Science as well as Google search engine for the publication period 2000 to 2021. Several search keywords were typed such as ‘older persons’ ‘elderly’, ‘senior citizens’, ‘assistive social robots’, ‘companion robots’, ‘personal robots’, ‘usability’ and ‘user experience’. This online search found a total of 215 articles which are related to assistive social robots in elderly care. Out of which, 54 articles identified as significant references, and they were examined thoroughly to prepare the main content of this paper. This paper reveals usability issues of 28 assistive social robots, and user experience feedback based on 41 units of assistive social robots. Based on the research articles scrutinized, the authors concluded that the key elements in the design and development of assistive social robots to improve acceptance of older persons were determined by three factors: functionality, usability and users’ experience. Functionality refers to ability of robots to serve the older persons. Usability is ease of use of the robots. It is an indicator on how successful of interaction between the robots and the users. To improve usability, robot designers should consider the limitations of older persons such as vision, hearing, and cognition capabilities when interactingwith the robots. User experience reflects to perceptions, preferences and behaviors of users that occur before, during and after use the robots. Combination of superior functionality and usability lead to a good user experiencein using the robots which in the end achieves satisfaction of older persons.

Colour‐emotion association and colour preference for elder care robot appearance

AbstractWith the population ageing in Taiwan, it is projected that elder care robots incorporating smart technologies will play an essential role in ambient assisted living. This research has two purposes: (1) to investigate whether older adults' colour‐emotion associations and colour preferences for robot appearance affect their perceptual judgements; and (2) to explore gender differences in their judgements. Phase I of this research uses a questionnaire to investigate 91 participants' preferences for robot style and their emotional trigger words for the role of robots. Phase II experiments were performed on another 60 older adults to identify whether their colour‐emotion associations and colour preferences affect their perceptual judgements. The research results show that, regardless of gender difference, participating older adults prefer a robot with non‐human–like features. The results also show that there is no significant difference between males and females in terms of the effect of colour‐emotion association on a robot's appearance. Older adults tend to associate warm colours with emotional semantics, such as friendly, comfortable, reassuring, gentle and lively. Preferred colours include red, white and yellow. Black and grey are almost never preferred by older adults. There are significant differences by gender in the preferences for the colours white and purple. Older females prefer purple more, while white is preferred by older males. For the other colours, there were no significant differences between males and females. Colour attributes do not have any effect on colour‐emotion association, whereas colour preference is highly positively correlated with b*.

A Review on the Use of Mobile Service Robots in Elderly Care

Global demographics trend toward an aging population. Hence, there will be an increased social demand for elderly care. Recently, assistive technologies such as service robots have emerged and can help older adults to live independently. This paper reports a review starting from 1999 of the existing mobile service robots used for older adults to grow old at home. We describe each robot from the viewpoint of applications, platforms, and empirical studies. Studies reported that mobile social robots could assist older adults throughout their daily activities such as reminding, household tasks, safety, or health monitoring. Moreover, some of the reported studies indicate that mobile service robots can enhance the well-being of older adults and decrease the workload for their caregivers.

Image and Speech Recognition Technology in the Development of an Elderly Care Robot: Practical Issues Review and Improvement Strategies.

As the world's population is aging and there is a shortage of sufficient caring manpower, the development of intelligent care robots is a feasible solution. At present, plenty of care robots have been developed, but humanized care robots that can suitably respond to the individual behaviors of elderly people, such as pose, expression, gaze, and speech are generally lacking. To achieve the interaction, the main objectives of this study are: (1) conducting a literature review and analyzing the status quo on the following four core tasks of image and speech recognition technology: human pose recognition, human facial expression recognition, eye gazing recognition, and Chinese speech recognition; (2) proposing improvement strategies for these tasks based on the results of the literature review. The results of the study on these improvement strategies will provide the basis for using human facial expression robots in elderly care.

What hinders robotic care? Towards situated understanding of elder care robots and their uses

What hinders robotic care? Towards situated understanding of elder care robots and their uses

Research on the Design of Accompanying Products for the Mentally Retarded Elderly Based on AHP

As the number of elderly patients with dementia is increasing year by year, accompanying products for the elderly with dementia are becoming more and more important. Senile dementia has become a major disease that affects countries around the world and, at the same time, it has brought enormous pressure on social care. Therefore, this research aims to obtain a new set of design methods for dementia elderly care products by introducing the combination of AHP and fuzzy evaluation methods and applying them to design examples. And then break through the existing design path of accompanying products for the elderly with dementia, and relieve the social burden. This study takes the intelligent care robot for the elderly with dementia as an example. Due to the particularity of user groups, this article proposed a design method for elderly care products that integrates mathematical theoretical models. This design method is convenient for designers to have a more accurate data reference when designing and positioning, and summarizing the supporting product design scheme that can better meet the actual needs of the elderly with dementia. Through SET factors to analyze the driving force of demand for dementia elderly care products, and combined with a questionnaire survey to establish the design requirements of dementia elderly care products for analysis of hierarchy process, it effectively defines the design demand attributes of dementia elderly intelligent care robots. The research results are applied to the design of the intelligent accompanying care robot for the demented elderly, the comprehensive fuzzy evaluation of the design scheme is carried out, and the direction of further optimization of the scheme is obtained. This article proposed a design method for accompanying care products for the elderly with dementia by combining F-AHP (Fuzzy Comprehensive Evaluation Method and Analytic Hierarchy Process). This design method is based on a rigorous mathematical theoretical model. Compared with the traditional design method, this research focused on quantitative analysis and evaluation of the actual design requirements of the dementia elderly care products and had more accurate design priority data reference in the scheme design. The research results show that based on the combination of F-AHP, this article redefines the design path of accompanying products for the elderly with dementia, and concludes that the functions that need to be improved and optimized in the future of intelligent accompanying robots for the elderly with dementia are mainly: executive ability training, computing ability training, and observation ability training. At the same time, the design process of the intelligent escort robot for the elderly with dementia can also be applied to the design of intelligent elderly products, which can improve the service experience of intelligent elderly products in a targeted manner.

Service Robots in Nursing Homes (SeRoNu): a holistic model of influencing factors

This article in the journal Gruppe. Interaktion. Organisation. introduces a model that provides an overview and orientation for science and practice regarding robots in elderly care. Aging societies and the lack of professionals working in elderly care put strain on the care sector in many countries worldwide. Robots can be a possible support for caregivers and assistance for people in need of care. However, their (future) usage comes along with various challenges and currently there are only few examples of use in practice. The data of the developed holistic triple-layered shell model SeRoNu (Service Robots in Nursing Homes) is based on three conducted studies: (I) A work analysis (HTO-Approach; Strohm and Ulich 1997), (II) future workshops (Jungk and Müllert 1989) and (III) expert interviews. Social robot Pepper is used as an example of application, as the model offers a framework for different service robots. The article illustrates the influencing factors and the diversity of robotic solutions to the care crisis. As a result, a multi-professional approach is required as the different aspects need to be considered individually.

Design of elderly-assistant mobile servant robot

<span lang="EN-US">Recently, <span>elderly population increasing worldwide has put higher pressure on health-care providers and their families. The advent of elderly care robots will reduce that pressure. In this paper, a design of mobile servant robot with integrated tracking algorithm in order to assist the elderly by companionship is proposed not only to help families take care of their elderly at home but also reduce the pressure on health-care providers. The proposed robot is based on humanoid structure and AI-embedded-GPU controller. The design allows the robot to follow the elderly and accompany them in real-time. In addition, the video streaming algorithm with the pipeline mechanism is integrated on robot controllers so that the owner interacts with the elderly through the internet. The robot controller is embedded into hardware of 128 graphics processing unit cores and 4 ARM Cortex-A9 cores in order to execute convolutional neural network (NCNN) algorithms for elderly recognition and body tracking. The processing speed at 14 fps of video stream in real-time. The proposed robot can move on uneven surfaces with a speed at 0.21 m/s and an accuracy over 90%. However, the video stream processing speed is able to be reduced at 15 fps and latency less than 415 ms when four users appear concurrently.</span></span>

Cyberattacks on Self-Driving Cars and Surgical and Eldercare Robots

Robots have improved human life and increased the efficiency of performance in tasks that require precision and effort. For example, surgical robots are now used to perform precise surgical procedures and give accurate results. Moreover, robots are also used in elderly care to ease their lives. Perhaps there can even be self-driving cars that could deliver a person to their destination without the need of a driver. So it is very important to mention that these robots should be secure in terms of security for human life. Hence, this paper aims to explore the published studies on robots and their various security vulnerabilities. We review the most prominent weaknesses in the robotic operating system (ROS) and discuss some types of attacks against these robots. Also, this paper discusses the security enhancements to protect ROS that researchers have suggested protecting against some of the attacks and vulnerabilities that may occur on these robots. The primary findings of this work are to generate system copies for backup as well as encryption to protect against information disclosure. Also, a dynamic model is needed to detect and mitigate attacks that may occur in a physical manner, such as injecting malware into robots.