Observing her from 5 meters distance, we aren’t going to notice anything unusual about Nadine. She is an intelligent robot that has autonomous behavior. Considering that she is just a machine, her behavior and appearance seem natural.
At IMI, they are still adjusting her receptionist skills. Being able to recognize people and human emotions, and to make associations using her knowledge database is what makes her an incredible innovation. Her database is serving as her thoughts. If this turns out to be something good, your grandpa may not need to post an ad looking up for a nurse.
Nadine will certainly provide the help.
Can robots satisfy social needs of elders?
The pressure put by a growing number of elders leads to a study about robots usage, robots that are supposed to replace the Nurses. All of this arouses the question, what about the social side of the healthcare? An older person needs someone to chat to, someone to share its feelings with.
We’re all thinking about that as something that will come in a packet with this robot. People are creatures in need of a real friend. Speaking about this robot, a lot of effort will have to be put in to reach the feeling of a true friendship between a human being and a robot.
Robots can read stories and play games
The team led by Professor Nadia Thalmann is working on a development of this robot called Nadine.
Not only she is capable of recognizing people and emotions, but she is also capable of remembering them. In the case of an emergency, this robot can call for help.
She can also read stories or play games. However, there is a problem - Nadine has a problem with understanding accents, and her hand co-ordination doesn’t work the best way.
Anyway, Prof Thalmann says that robots will perhaps care for the elderly within ten years.
Mera is a robot that helps with elders' health
IBM also decided to put its hands on this topic. They are researching about robot-nurse having Rice University as its partner. They managed to create the IBM Multi-Purpose Eldercare Robot Assistant (Mera).
The abilities of Mera make us wonder about what a robot is capable of. Monitoring patient’s heart and breathing is only one of the options of Mera. Mera does the monitoring by analyzing video of their face. In the case that the patient has fallen, Mera will see it and pass information to carers.
