Would you use a robot to take care of your family?

One of the driving forces of interactive robot is the issue of impending labor shortage, which is projected to be one of the major and inevitable consequences of the ageing population phenomenon.

That includes developing personal robots that seniors can have at home, so that more seniors can enjoy independent living for a longer period of time without needing the assistance of a human nurse. But, for many years, experts have expressed concerns about what type or use of cloud-brained humanoid robots is appropriate or should be allowed. Help us voice your opinion on this topic by participating in our short poll below.

Consider a general purpose personal robot that is designed for seniors who live alone at home without a hired nurse. Thinking of senior members in your network of family/friends/neighbors, have a personal robot (no matter humanoid robot or smaller social robot) gone into their families? And what are the robots doing?

Robot is capable of a wide variety of interactions, including health care and monitoring medication compliance, security monitoring, education, errands, and entertainment at home. A home robot is considered as an exact solution to take care of the elderly to fight against the aging, shrinking population, also called an unrequired robotic caregiver, seeing great potential.

In the early stages of elder care robotics development, there was good cause to be suspect of the technology. But in recent years, elder care robot research and development has grown more conventional and cheaper, producing products with greater functionality and broader consumer acceptance.

They can use sensors and cameras to supervise an elderly person, making sure they take their medication at the right time or that they don’t fall. Smart-home technology is addressing some of these issues, using sensors to track patterns and automatically detect when something is amiss. For example, in a fully automated house, a stove left on for too long or a person deviating from their normal daily patterns could trigger an alert for caregivers.

But robots could take such automated care a step further. They could, actually some robots are doing it, help people suffering from dementia, reminding them about daily tasks and retaining important information — phone numbers or types of medication — that the senior might forget. With conversational skills, robots might also keep an aging person’s mind sharp by engaging them in chit-chat and challenging them with questions or games, while even tracking their progress or loss of memory over time.

Robots with computer screens could also act as telepresence machines, bridging the gap between health-care professionals and the elderly. Traveling to the hospital can be a stressful experience, and frequent nurse visits are cost and time prohibitive. Instead, a doctor could check in on their patient more frequently via the robot’s screen, even controlling the machine remotely for simple tasks like taking vitals. Family members could communicate remotely with a parent or grandparent via a telepresence robot — Skype with movement and a body.

With advanced artificial intelligence and humanoid designs, these robots could even act as companions, potentially alleviating loneliness. And there is no harm found from the robotic caregivers to people. People should trust and use family robots to share the love to their parents.