5 minute read

Report on Nursing Robots

Abstract

Robotic technology has gradually penetrated both personal and professional life of human lives. This is very extensive field. Robotics is an interdisciplinary branch of engineering and science that includes mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, and computer science. Artificial intelligence (AI) is playing fundamental role in robotics as this technological advanced field is dealing with connecting perception to action.

Robots are already being used in industries like manufacturing, places were dangerous work needs to be carried out not possible by human, or some places where human cannot survive. Robotics currently has lot of professional and non-professional applications. They are being used in non-professional applications like room cleaning, food preservation, lawn mowing, playing with kids. Professional applications are mainly public transport systems including the undergrounds, over grounds, and metro services.

At present, there are rising incidences of lifestyle diseases and growing demand for affordable healthcare. There has been increased role of government in healthcare investment space and emergence of technologies such as artificial learning (AI), machine learning (ML) and robotics have been driving healthcare industry across the world. AI & ML is becoming increasingly sophisticated at doing what humans do, but more efficiently, quickly and at a lower cost

Japan is currently leading the world in advanced robotics, where usage of service robot has been recently growing in nursing or care homes. Many Japanese corporations are planning to exploit the great potentials of nursing-care robots manufacturing especially where aimed at taking care of older adults. There are about 5,000 nursing-care homes testing robots for use in nursing care due to declining number of human nurses to care for aged people (above 65 years of age) who are more than a quarter of the population (the highest in OECD countries).

Problem statement

Census bureau estimates that nearly 25 % of population will be aged 65 or older by 2060. According to the World Bank population estimates and projections, whilst Japan currently has some 126.3 million inhabitants of which 34.7 million are aged 65 and above, representing 27.38% of the overall population, in 2050 the total population of Japan will shrink to 108 million with 39 million people that will be aged 65 and above, which will represent 36% of the overall population. There will be more demand on care. This could cause a significant shortage of nurses in health care to care for elderly.

Nurses spends time in doing multiple every day routine activities which can be delegated to a different person. Researches around the globe have observed and are of opinion that certain nursing function such as ambulation services, patient vital signs measurement, medication administration, infectious diseases protocols can be delegated to robots. As robots learn to perform these duties role of nurses in delivery care will change.

Research suggests that 8% to 16% nursing time is spent on non-nursing activities. As robots learns to perform non-nursing activities, nurses with robot support will have ability to take back the time spent on non-nursing activities and spend more of it with patients. The robots are being viewed as assistants to help nurses at bedside or in community.

Current Status of AI solution

Robotics is well on its way in many roles and procedure in health care. Robotic engineers are advancing what robots can do and how they emotionally respond to circumstances. Below are some of the AI solutions used in nursing profession and carries out non-nursing activities

1. Patients vital sign measurement and repetitive task(s)

While every country is fighting with COVID situation, front line works are being under tremendous pressure, especially doctors/nurses. AI solution has come to rescue, with a robot-based solution that helps to collect samples for testing.

2. Humanoid Robot

PALRO is a humanoid type robot which can communicate with human 1. It has ability to remember up to 100 faces and communicate through voice. It has proven effective when applied with some senior patients with Dementia.

3. Patient Caretaker

Japan introduced an experimental robot in 2015 “ROBEAR” 2. With its rapidly increasing elderly population, Japan faces an urgent need for new approaches to assist care-giving personnel. One of the most strenuous tasks for such personnel, carried out an average of 40 times every day, is that of lifting a patient from a bed into a wheelchair, and this is a major cause of lower back pain. Robots are well-suited to this task, yet none have yet been deployed in care-giving facilities 3.

Improvement opportunities

Communication

Humans are known to be intelligent creatures and has ability to adapt, behave, and respond to any situation. Though Robots are developed by humans they are still far away to mimic these human features. Studies have shown that communication between human and robot has resulted in worse outcomes when robots were involved in area like surgery. These are high stress situation like operation room where we need to improvise robots in terms of behavior, communication, and response

Movement

Technology is moving fast paced where devices have started transitioning from smart speakers to robots with ability to move. Articulation and mobility will be the key features to personal/social robots that can move and face the home user. Adding robotic functions to existing voice control front-end devices will deliver confirmation of activation and engagement through physical movement or simulated facial expressions. Aging-in-place or Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) end-users may be one consumer segment that would welcome greater robotic capabilities in a voice control device.

Human-Bot Interaction

Today’s robots available can perform basic tasks that require no emotional decision-making or empathy. In addition to ability to perform basic task, they need to be able to interact with human co-workers better so that they help to alleviate staff shortages.

References

  1. Inoue K., Sakuma N., Okada M., Sasaki C., Nakamura M., Wada K. (2014) Effective Application of PALRO: A Humanoid Type Robot for People with Dementia. In: Miesenberger K., Fels D., Archambault D., Peňáz P., Zagler W. (eds) Computers Helping People with Special Needs. ICCHP 2014. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 8547. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08596-8_70 ↩︎

  2. Ohio University. The Rise of the Robot Nurse.[Online]. https://onlinemasters.ohio.edu/blog/the-rise-of-the-robot-nurse/> ↩︎

  3. Jens Wilkinson. (Feb. 23, 2015). The strong robot with the gentle touch. [Online]. https://www.riken.jp/en/news_pubs/research_news/pr/2015/20150223_2/ ↩︎