Care robots can help us care for people in many different settings. There are all kinds of tasks for the care robot to come up with, but what do we want as a society?
Robots in healthcare
How do patients look at robots, and what is the feeling of the healthcare providers? Everyone can see that healthcare is under pressure. People are getting older and fewer and fewer hands are available. Will there be enough hands left to care for the many elderly and sick people?
Examples of the care robot
More robots are rapidly being developed for (medical) care. For example, there are robots for hospitals that are used for medical interventions and robotic orthoses and prostheses to help patients function in society after surgery and rehabilitation.
Logistical tasks
In hospitals and care institutions we see robot initiatives that are used for logistic tasks such as the delivery of food, medicines, bed linen or support for certain cleaning tasks or sterilisation of rooms.
Service and information
Social and service robots can be used to provide information to patients and visitors and invite them to communicate with them. For example, about treatment methods, the course of events or the route description in the healthcare institution.
For internal patients in care or nursing homes, robots can be used that perform more personal tasks, such as reminding the patient that it is time for his medication, the occurrence of exercises or the prevention of loneliness, sleeplessness or boredom by a robot animal or sleeping robot.