Meet Zora, the Robot Caregiver

Jouarre, a nursing community outside Paris, is using a robot to help care for seniors, reports the New York Times . Since the "Zora" robot's arrival, many care recipients have developed an emotional attachment, treating it like a baby. A nurse controls Zora from a laptop, standing out of view so the subjects do not know who is guiding the robot. Zora can hold conversations as the nurse types words into the computer. The robot also can lead exercises and play games. The experience at Jouarre shows what life could be like as society depends more on robots to help care for loved ones as they age. Zora Bots, the Belgium-based provider of the robot at Jouarre, has sold more than 1,000 of the machines to healthcare communities around the world. Such technology may increasingly become a necessity in dealing with the challenge of dwindling numbers of healthcare professionals, especially as senior populations expand worldwide. This will likely entail creating machines capable of more sophisticated tasks than simply offering relief from loneliness.