Robot assisted activity to elderly at a health service facility for the aged

Author

Kazuyoshi, W. ; Shibata, Takanori ; Saito, Tomoko ; Tanie, Kazuo

Author_Institution

Intelligent Syst. Inst., AIST, Ibaraki, Japan

fYear

2003

fDate

20-22 March 2003

Firstpage

470

Lastpage

473

Abstract

We have been developing mental commit robots that provide psychological, physiological, and social effects to human beings through physical interaction. The appearances of these robots look like real animals such as cat and seal. The seal robot was developed especially for therapy. We have applied seal robots to assisting activity of elderly people at a health service facility for the aged. In order to investigate psychological and social effects of seal robots to the elderly people, we evaluated elderly people´s moods by using a Profile of Mood States (which measures a person´s moods by questionnaire). Seal robots were provided for the facility for three weeks. As a result, the feelings of elderly people were improved by interaction with the seal robots.

Keywords

geriatrics; handicapped aids; human computer interaction; psychology; robots; social aspects of automation; Profile of Mood States; elderly people; health service facility; mental commit robots; physical interaction; psychological effects; questionnaires; real animals; robot assisted activity; seal robot; social effects; therapy; Aging; Animals; Human robot interaction; Intelligent robots; Medical treatment; Mood; Psychology; Robot sensing systems; Seals; Senior citizens;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Neural Engineering, 2003. Conference Proceedings. First International IEEE EMBS Conference on

Print_ISBN

0-7803-7579-3

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/CNE.2003.1196863

Filename

1196863