Companion dogs have their place in aged care homes to alleviate loneliness. Now it seems, robot dogs are just as comforting for the residents.
Dogs make good companions for lonely seniors
Elderly people in nursing homes, elder care facilities or living alone often feel lonely, even if there are nursing staff and other people around. They miss the special attention of a family member or pet. So it’s quite common for companion animals to be brought into elder care and nursing homes, to give some one on one quality time and cuddles to the elderly person.
Dogs, particularly labradors and beagles, are very popular for this role, as they are gentle, friendly and affectionate.
However, some people are afraid of dogs, some facilities don’t have the space, time or appropriate staff to manage feeding, exercising and housing companion dogs. The Japanese have come up with a simple technological solution – the robot dog.
A recent study from St Louis University Medical Center, St Louis, Missouri, showed that a robot dog was just as reassuring and companionable as a real dog for elderly residents in nursing homes.
The researchers, led by Dr William A. Banks, professor of geriatric medicine at Saint Louis University, compared how residents of three nursing homes interacted with Sparky, a gentle, medium-sized real live dog, and Aibo, a doggie robot that looks like a three-dimensional cartoon.
Aibo was manufactured by Sony as a companion robot. Its name – AIBO - is an acronym of Artificial Intelligence plus BO from robot. The line was discontinued in 2006. By then more than 150,000 Aibos had been sold since they went on the market in 1999.
Aibo had touch sensors, sound, voice and face recognition, the ability to learn from its environment and express emotion. The later models of Aibo even had LED face lights to better show a range of emotions.
Aibo’s LED Illume-Face enabled it to communicate throughout the day, when it detected its toys, somebody’s hand, voice commands, people’s faces and voices. Each expression was created by an animated pattern on the Illume-Face display. The LEDs faded in and out, depending on the emotion it was expressing.
An elderly lady playing with Aibo
To test whether elderly residents connected better with Sparky or Aibo, researchers divided a total of 38 nursing home residents into three groups. All were asked questions to assess their level of loneliness. One group saw Sparky once a week for 30 minutes, another group had similar visits with Aibo, and a control group saw neither furry nor mechanical critter.
During the visits, Marian Banks, Dr Banks’ wife and co-researcher, brought either Sparky or Aibo into a resident’s room and placed the pet companion near the resident. Both pets interacted with residents - wagging their tails and responding to the people they visited.
After seven weeks, all residents were asked questions about how lonely they felt and how attached they were to Sparky or Aibo.
“The most surprising thing is they [the robot dogs] worked almost equally well [as Sparky] in terms of alleviating loneliness and causing residents to form attachments,” said Dr Banks.
Regardless of whether the pooch was battery operated or had a real body and heart, the residents said they felt less lonely and more attached to their companion dog visitors than did those who had no canine visits.
“There is a lot of loneliness in nursing homes and animal-assisted therapy – whether from a dog or a robot – is one answer for addressing that,” Dr Banks said.
While Aibo is no longer in production, it is still possible to find Aibo models on eBay or similar sites. Dr Banks also suggested that a robotic companion need not be a dog.
Particularly for someone elderly living alone, a humanoid robot could be a big help, especially one with personality. Think of R2-D2, he suggested.
“This health companion could follow a person in his home, giving reminders on when to take medication or sending out an alert when a person has suddenly gone from a vertical position to a horizontal one,” Dr Banks said.
“A person could get tired of a robot following him around. But if you could change that inanimate voyeur to a personal part of his life and a companion, that could be entirely different.”
Such a robot has already been tested by researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. They have developed a robotic assistant, the uBOT-5, which can dial 911 in case of emergencies, remind people to take their medication, help with grocery shopping and allow the person to talk to loved ones and health care providers.
“For the first time, robots are safe enough and inexpensive enough to do meaningful work in a residential environment,” says computer scientist Rod Grupen, director of UMass Amherst’s Laboratory for Perceptual Robotics.
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