They interact with patients and reduce their hospitalization stress, stimulating them to perform relaxation exercises, listen to music or watch a film. Social robots enter the wards of the neurorehabilitation units of the Santa Lucia Irccs Foundation in Rome with an experiment that will test their usefulness in hospitalized patients.
The robots used are devices equipped with a series of functions useful for keeping the mind trained and reducing the condition of discomfort linked to hospitalization. “James, the model of social robot that we are helping to develop – comments Federica Piras, psychologist, speech therapist and researcher in charge of the project – can be of support for a series of functions such as facilitating communications with the outside world to reduce the sense of solitude, providing cognitive stimulation activities adapted to the conditions of the individual patient, entertaining with reading newspapers or books, watching films and documentaries, virtual trips. But also providing meditation sessions, sounds of nature and music”.
The study is part of the “Remember-Me” project which involves the use of new technologies at the service of elderly people for the continuous monitoring and prevention of cognitive decline. “To date”, concludes Piras, “70 elderly Italians have taken part in the Remember-Me project and have welcomed the presence of this technology in their homes, demonstrating, even in the elderly population, their acceptance of the unexpected technological innovation”.
The system has undergone further development, with new functions suitable for use within highly specialized hospital neurorehabilitation departments. And now, the doctors of Saint Lucia will evaluate its usefulness in the ward on a scientific basis.
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