Robots Seen as Filling Caregiver Vacuum for Aging Baby Boomers
Georgia Institute of Technology
Noel Brinkerhoff | AllGov.com
With America growing grayer by the year because of the aging Baby Boom generation, the health care industry needs more elderly care workers.
But due to low wages for such work, an insufficient number of people are vying for these jobs, leaving a vacuum that someone—or something—must fill.
Enter robots.
Through the work of various universities, several new types of robots are coming along that could help care for seniors.
There’s Cody, a robotic nurse developed at the Georgia Institute of Technology that’s “gentle enough to bathe elderly patients.”
Then there’s HERB, the Home Exploring Robot Butler, from Carnegie Mellon that can retrieve household needs for patients and even help with the cleaning.
A third robot, Hector, can remind patients to take their medicine, help locate eyeglasses and assist in the event of a fall, according to its developers at the University of Reading in England.