Robot Therapy in a Care House - Change of Relationship among the Residents and Seal Robot during a 2-month Long Study

Abstract

Robot therapy for elderly residents in a care house has been conducted since June 2005. Two therapeutic seal robots were introduced and activated for over 9 hours every day to interact with the residents. This paper presents the results of this experiment for two months. In order to investigate the psychological and social effects of the robots, each subject was interviewed by using the free pile sort method, and their social relationship was analysed. The results showed that the robots encouraged them to communicate with each other and then strengthened their social ties over the two months. In addition, the subjects accustomed to Paro and then they made personal relationship with Paro.