Would You Let a Robot Caregiver Take Care of Your Parents?
April 25, 2021
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Author: Yoko Marikawa - Japanese Expert in Eldercare & Healthcare
Opinion: To solve the problem of the shortage of nursing staff, it is necessary to find long-term and effective final solutions via the development of high technology. It is recommended that the Japanese government encourage the development of IT, AI and robots.
Nursing home bullying, abuse, casualties and "caregiver homicide" incidents are frequent. Not only are they impossible to prevent, but they are also increasing at an average annual rate of more than 30%. Why? In 2014, three elderly people were killed by caregivers in nursing homes in Kawasaki City. In 2016, 19 people were killed and 26 were injured in the Sagamihara City Welfare Institute in Kanagawa prefecture. In January 2018, 11 elderly people were killed by a fire in a nursing home in Sapporo. Take another look at the United States. In September 2017, 12 elderly people died in a nursing home in Florida; the horrific case of Seattle nursing home rape in 2019; the brutal case of an elderly beaten to death by a caregiver in a California nursing home. In the end, the generalized reasons for the occurrence of these shocking cases of torture, are blamed to the nursing staff's bad personality, temperament, bad mood caused by high work pressure and dissatisfaction, hatred caused by low income, negligence caused by overwork, or simply mistakes, and more! Of course, the root cause investigated is that the shortage of nursing home staff directly leads to the reduction of qualification requirements and the reduction of professional training content and time in actual recruitment from nursing homes. In addition, there is a shortage of staff, which cannot be taken care of.
Although Japan, Europe and the United States have taken the professional ethics education standards for caregivers as the most hopeful solution, as we all know, it is ineffective against trying to prevent or eliminate the occurrence of these abuse and casualty accidents. Moreover, with the aging population, such abuse and casualties will increase year by year. Please see the report issued by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan (figure below: 2018 annual report). This is a big social problem that makes the whole human society sad, but it is still an unsolved problem so far!
In comparison, what is the difference between robots and humans? No emotion, meaning no bad temper, no fatigue, able to work 24 hours without rest, will not dislike low salary (no need to pay salary!), able to perform tasks accurately, and so on. Would a robot carer ideally solve these problems that human caregivers are prone to? Let us take a look at several types of caregiver robots.
The first category is the nursing assistant-type caregiver robot. The robot bear (Robear), which became popular in 2015, has set off a heated discussion about caregiver robots in the world. This tall and cute white robot bear is praised for being strong and gentle. It is a model of the power assistant caregiver robot, which is mainly responsible for the hardest lifting, moving, turning over and other heavy physical tasks, which can reduce the workload of the artificial nursing staff. More importantly, it can work "all year round" without complaints! Therefore, this most practical and simple robot bear is very popular and has been widely used in nursing homes. The only risk is that his circuit and program system need to be maintained and inspected to ensure that it can execute instructions normally.
The second category is the companion robot. The biggest issue among the elderly is loneliness, because loneliness reduces brain activity, which is one of the most important reasons for suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Now the most popular and widely used in nursing homes to assist in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease is the little sea lion named (Paro), an interactive robot made of AIST technology. Paro is a furry white sea lion of the same size as a human baby. It has sensors all over its body and can make flexible and vivid reactions to touch and hug. Although it can't speak, he can make a simulated voice of a sea lion. He has big black eyes and long eyelashes. He can make a lovely expression and act coquettishly with his tail, hands and feet. He is loved by the old people. In the nursing homes I visited, I saw the old people holding Paro and calling it their own child.
At present, Paro is widely used in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. Paro’s research report stated that Paro has a direct effect on resolving anxiety, softening emotions, and stimulating brain activity by increasing the amount of speech by the elderly. Paro can also improve the elderly’s health as well as social and communication skills; from an economic perspective, it can directly reduce the cost of physical therapy for Alzheimer's disease. According to statistics, the cost of physical therapy for patients with Alzheimer's disease is an average of $800-1,200. This cost can be saved by using Paro. Accompanying robots are mostly small pets or babies, such as robot dogs, small sea lions, cartoon characters, etc. Some can also talk and chat with the elderly.
The third category is responsible for safety and supervision: guardian robots. They are widely used in homes with elderly people suffering from Alzheimer's disease or with mobility impairments. Robots with remote monitoring and calling functions are used in this field. Most of them use AI technology to move around freely, locate the elderly, conduct face recognition and autonomous communication, identify whether the elderly fell from the bed, collapsed, or are in a dangerous position or state, and send information to the call service center by themselves, or perform calls for help according to the instructions of the elderly, contacting relatives, etc. Their eyes are also cameras, which can send video messages directly, so that the elderly and their families can see the situation of the elderly at any time. For example, PALRO has been used by nearly a thousand elderly care institutions.
Robot PALRO.
European robot developers are also very keen about the Japanese market and are actively investing. The author once participated in a research project of a British robot development team. They are optimistic about the market of security monitoring for the elderly at home. They integrated infrared detection, voice recognition, and video monitoring, automatic calling and many other functions to assist and reduce the workload of nursing care for the relatives of the elderly at home.
It can be seen that there are many types of caregiver robots, such as companion type, medical care type, safety supervision type, labor type, etc. New types of robots are constantly being developed. With the use of AI technology, robots are also expected to be more intelligent and more simulated. The development of these robots is becoming more and more popular.
The shortage of employees in the eldercare service industry in Japan is a long-term problem that has plagued the Japanese eldercare industry. According to data released by the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Labour in 2020, there will be approximately 5.6 million nursing care workers in Japan by 2020, and this is directly caused by the accelerated aging of the population. The nursing care population continues to increase sharply every year, but the Japanese labor force, which is in the opposite direction of the rapid increase in the elderly population, continues to decrease year after year. Statistics released by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan show that the proportion of the elderly population over 65 has increased from 7% in 1970 to 29% in 2020, but the proportion of the labor force (referring to the population between the ages of 15 and 64) has dropped from 67.1% to 54%, which has aggregated the shortage of employees in the nursing care service industry. In 2025, the shortage of workers in the eldercare service industry in Japan will reach 380,000. In the author's article "Retire at 70? Why Japan Postponed the Retirement Age" analyzes why Japan postponed the retirement age to 70 on April 1, 2021. One of the most important reasons for this move is labor shortage.
Although the Japanese government began to recruit foreign students in the early 1990s and funded the program of training caregivers and caregiver assistants, it later attracted professional caregivers from Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam to work in Japan through the economic partnership agreement. Although agreement included eldercare in the state-funded internship system, and several attempts were made to provide new long-term work visa for qualified foreign caregivers and so on, due to the exclusion of foreigners and the closed social environment of immigrants in Japan, these students cannot adapt to the society. Coupled with the language barrier, they are unable to stay in Japan for long-term employment or settlement. Therefore, these projects cost the government funds, but failed to solve the problem of eldercare services and staff shortage. It is worth mentioning that every year the Parliament will fight over the total number of foreign workers, and the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare is plagued by the shortage of labor. But in order to increase the number of foreign workers, it will also have to fight against conservative members of Parliament.
The author has said many years ago that in order to solve the problem of nursing staff shortage, we should find a long-term and effective final solution through the development of high technology. It is suggested that the Japanese government encourage the development of AI and robots. The Japanese government began to support the concept of scientific and technological endowment since 2013, mainly encouraging remote monitoring and communication, telecommunication and physical repositioning of the elderly, medical treatment and consultation through high technology. In recent years, the development of caregiver robot has also been paid attention to. With the acceptance and recognition of caregiver robots by more and more elderly people, their contributions to the eldercare industry have also been proven, so the caregiver robot market is expanding rapidly. Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has estimated that the market of caregiver robots in Japan will increase 20 times in 10 years from 2015 to 2025. It can be said that the market potential of caregiver robots is huge!
Judging from the case of Japan, the use of caregiver robots to solve the shortage of nursing staff is currently the most effective method! Of course, the debate about the pros and cons of caregiver robots, family affection and ethics are still ongoing. Can you accept the idea that your parents are taken care of by caregiver robots, or are you old enough to be taken care of by robots? These controversies will continue, let us continue to pay attention to the development of the caregiver robot industry!
The author Yoko Marikawa is an expert in the elderly care industry in Japan and a pioneer in the elderly care industry. She has long been committed to ensuring and improving the well-being of the elderly by improving the management of nursing homes and the quality of elderly care services. In recent years, in order to find effective solutions to the problems of poor medical services for the elderly, elder abuse, the surge of elderly dementia patients, and the shortage of eldercare workers, Yoko Marikawa has devoted a lot of energy in researching how to use high technology to help solve these serious and urgent social issues, including the use of nursing robots, quantitative management and monitoring systems, etc. This article is an article in Yoko Marikawa's newspaper column "Yoko Marikawa Talks about Eldercare".
About the Author
About the Author
Yoko Marikawa
Japanese expert in Healthcare & Eldercare industry; Founder and Chairman of YOKO Management Consulting; United Nations Representative; Scholar & columnist; Former Chief Officer at World Blockchain Organization.
Yoko is an advocate for healthcare and eldercare, elderly wellbeing, senior care service, nursing home management, and medical care technology. Recently, she is focusing on implementing advanced technology to improve senior care service and nursing home management quality. She is an active columnist, enriching the knowledge of the eldercare industry and contributing to the academic field.
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