Robots might be part of the future of health care at Toronto’s Jewish Home for the Aged.
Goldie Nejat, an assistant professor at the University of Toronto, is working on a project to develop a “social robot” to enrich the lives of the elderly living at Baycrest, an expansive research, residential and care facility in Toronto that includes the Jewish Home.
“[It would become] someone who would be in the environment, who would be a coach and provide emotional encouragement,” explained Bianca Stern, director of culture and heritage at Baycrest.
The robot has been in the making for the past five years, Nejat said, and the partnership with Baycrest began about two years ago. Baycrest is one of the world’s premier academic health sciences centers focused on aging. It began in 1918 as the Toronto Jewish Old Folks Home.
Nejat has been working with a variety of undergraduate and graduate students, and the robot is named Brian after one of the students initially working on the project who was a model for the robot’s dimensions.
As of late 2010, Nejat’s team had developed the physical, mechanical platform for the robot, and they have moved on to working on its intelligence, Nejat said.
Currently, the robot can give event and activity reminders, have a basic conversation (for example, asking how someone is doing) and participate in playing a memory game, where the player has to turn over cards and try to make matches from memory. The robot can detect which cards have been flipped over and motivate the player throughout the game.
“Maybe they’re not making enough matches and they’re getting frustrated,” Nejat said. “[The robot] provides encouragement.”
The existing prototype cost about $20,000 to build, Nejat said, but the cost per robot will be much lower once the prototype is finalized.
Stern said the first prototype could be brought in as soon as this year. She stressed that the robot would work alongside human caregivers, not replace them. She also said that while the robot has a face and human characteristics, it will clearly be a robot.