Robot Assistant to Improve Senior Care in Nursing Communities

EIT Digital is supporting a robot to complement senior care in nursing communities, reports Medical Device Network . The prototype Social & Autonomous Robotic health Assistant (SARA) Home system can be accessed through a computer or tablet, so nurses and caregivers can avail themselves of a personalized profile and health plan for each resident they look after. SARA is being employed in two pilots in Finland and the Netherlands, concentrating on seniors in closed psychiatric departments who have first-stage dementia. The robot could help ease caregivers' workload by engaging with residents and presenting them with exercises designed to improve their condition. EIT Digital hopes this will reduce safety incidents, including medication errors that 13.8 percent of nurses deal with every week. "We believe that robots could give a great contribution to healthcare, not to replace nurses, but to collaborate with them and reduce their workload, so they have more time to spend with residents," said Bright Cape data scientist Emmy Rintjema. "They might also help reduce the errors due to high-time pressure."