Using Artificial Intelligence and Companion Robots to Improve Home Healthcare for the Elderly

Several statistical reports have addressed the problem of increasing old age and the related increase in emergency room requests in hospital centers. In this paper, interviews were conducted with specialists in the field of geriatrics, a branch of medicine that deals with disorders and diseases related to aging, with the aim of understanding the main health and cognitive problems of an elderly person. From the data that emerged from the interviews conducted, it was realized that the elderly tend to alarm physicians about any alterations, whether serious or not. This behavior causes an increase in healthcare costs associated with keeping more individuals in the emergency room. According to experts, one of the useful practices to keep cognitive impairment under control is mental training. In this context, the constant intervention of a caregiver, whether a family member or a person from outside the family, is helpful, so strategies to cope with the stress involved in managing a patient with dementia need to be improved. Therefore, the emotional state of the caregiver should be a factor that should not be underestimated. Based on these aspects, the goal is to reinvent caregiving so that it is automated and effective. In this article, we focus on the use of robots, with the integration of artificial intelligence, to monitor the health and cognitive status of an elderly person at home. We present the design of a system involving four actors and show a usage scenario.