Table 1 Assistive medical robots and devices for older adults
From: Assessment of personal care and medical robots from older adults’ perspective
Category | Description and primary functions | Research contributions |
|---|---|---|
Telerobots | The functions of this type of robot are to facilitate communication with medical professionals, to monitor injuries, and also to follow up with family members [1] | Pearl and Wakamuru robot [46], robo robot [46], skilligent robot [1], and RIBA [61] |
Mobile manipulator robots | Mobile manipulator robots focus on disabled and older adults with the intention of furnishing requested item to either older adult or disabled to satisfy their needs [2] | Mobile manipulator robot [2] |
Assistive walking devices | Assistive walking devices are primarily created to compensate older adults’ disabilities, while maintaining better balance, stability, and walking support. They also help in facilitating mobility, maneuvering, walking, standing, sitting, and independency. These devices are enhanced with information and communication technology to detect fall incidents, fall prevention, and also ameliorate alarming system. The enhancement in walking devices reduces waiting time to receive assistance [31]. Furthermore, ICT assists medical professionals and caretakers to monitor fall incidents closely [14] | Rolling walker [68], knee walker [3], crutch [40], and cane [69] |
Animal-like robots | Albeit a great number of medical professionals believe that animals have deleterious health consequences such as injuries and infection, a noticeable number of them subscribe to the belief that interaction with animal leads to emotive effects to patients. For this reason, animal robots with the purpose of communicating with and entertaining older adults, ameliorating health condition, and relieving distressing imitate animal behaviors [70] | Paro-robot [71], NeCoRo [11], AIBO [11], bandit [11], and accompany robots [36] |
Home health-care robots (HHRs) | When the primary tasks of a robot are associated with home health care, the robot is called home health-care robot. These kinds of robots assist medical specialists to monitor elderly at their houses. HHRs are designed with the purpose of ameliorating autonomy of older adults as well as improving their well-being to alleviate long-term hospitalization in medical centers. Home health-care services consist of substantial services such as professional and physical nursing care, speech treatment, and medical social services [1] | Tele-operated robot [50] |
Humanoid robots | This type of robot primarily identifies older adults’ needs and also provides services for both elderlies and their caregivers. The main features of this robot are to provide medication reminder, to detect issues and take action to inform caregiver, manage plans, and assist elderly to take off [44] | iCub robot and nao robot [21] |