The healthcare sector is facing a crisis. Ageing populations, chronic diseases and funding shortfalls are creating a perfect storm of problems for governments and care professionals the world over. According to Deloitte’s 2016 Global Health Care Sector Outlook report, these rising costs are creating a pressing need to reduce spending, increase efficiency and produce more value for money.
One sector which hopes to provide at least part of the answer is the robotics industry.
According to a report by wealth management firm Julius Baer, rapid advances in software and sensor technology are taking robots from traditional manufacturing industries into more specialist roles such as healthcare.
“Mobile robots are beginning to be used in the medical service arena, for example, to efficiently manage medication and autonomously transport supplies or meals throughout a building and even taking the lifts if needed,” says report author Fabiano Vallesi.
One example is the RoboCoach android, which has been designed to encourage the elderly to do simple exercises. It can mimic human movements, respond to voice commands and vary the pace of activities if people are falling behind during class. After a year-long trial it is now set to be rolled out to five “citizen activity centres” in Singapore, which has the world’s third most rapidly ageing population.
Li Yinbei, leader of the RoboCoach Project at Ngee Ann Polytechnic in Singapore, said: “Contrary to our initial concern that the elderly may hesitate to accept it, they are actually happy and grateful to exercise with the robot. They feel proud that they can use the latest technology and have not been left behind. The activity centre where the trial was conducted said the robot had helped reduce its reliance on volunteers.”
Another machine which has been trialled in the care sector is the Care-O-Bot 3.
This social robot was developed by British and European scientists and is able to recognise individual faces and interpret expressions, play music and entertainment, perform fetch and carry tasks, and call for help if a resident has a fall.
Dr Birgit Graf, head of the Care-O-Bot project team at the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation IPA in Stuttgart, says such technology would not replace humans completely. “We work on assistive systems that perform tasks so that care staff has more time for the interaction with patients and residents. Service robots can help to relieve the pressure on care staff with regard to both time and physical effort, thereby contributing to improved working conditions.”
Other robots being developed include Paro, a mechanical seal that provides therapy for dementia patients using a combination of light, touch, sound, and temperature. Developed by Japanese firm AIST, a study by Front Porch Centre for Innovation and Wellbeing found it had a calming effect on 60% of patients and boosted social behaviour by 97%.
Meanwhile, Robobear, an experimental nursing-care robot developed by the RIKEN-SRK Collaboration Centre for Human-Interactive Robot Research and Sumitomo Riko Company, can lift patients from beds into wheelchairs and help them stand up.
Some people in the care industry, however, are not convinced.
Andy Morgan owns and manages the Bakewells Care Home in Bolton, UK which accommodates 34 residents including eight in a bespoke dementia wing. He said: “These robots disturb me greatly. If they disturb me I cannot begin to imagine what they would do to a resident with dementia or any other form of age related cognitive impairment. He added: “Robots could never be considered as a solution to resolving the pressures we face within the social care sector with regards recruitment. This is not just about helping someone to get out of bed and assist them with their personal care, it’s about companionship, wellbeing and providing social contact, which robot’s will never be able to do.”
One 94-year-old resident at the home, who did not wish to be named, was also unimpressed, saying, “The girls here are wonderful but they are not just our carers they are also our friends. The people that think up these things are obviously not from our generation. They should be asking me who I would like helping me and I can assure them it wouldn’t be a faceless robot, that is my worst nightmare.”
The UK Care Quality Commission’s chief inspector of adult social care, Andrea Sutcliffe, agreed that robots should supplement, rather than replace staff. “We know technology can have a positive impact on people and regulation should not be seen as standing in the way of creative and innovative solutions to support people who need care,” she said.
“But let’s be clear – nothing can really replace the friendly smile, the caring touch and a compassionate manner that staff throughout the adult social care provide on a daily basis.”
Vallesi added that there were still barriers to overcome before such technology entered the mainstream care industry. He said: “This is a very nascent trend. Safety standards, social acceptance and technological challenges such as reliability, speed and precision are several of the barriers to wider adoption.”
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