Robots Supporting Care for Elderly People

摘要

This chapter describes problematic activities of elderly people that hinder their independent living, and also robotic solutions to assist elderly people in those activities. It explains a robotics framework that is used to classify robots supporting care for elderly people and also describes specific robots, illustrating different areas within the proposed robotics framework. Assistive technology (AT) can play a major role in supporting elderly people in their daily life. AT, such as (powered) wheelchairs, stair lifts, and in general home accessibility adaptations, have come a long way in supporting individuals in their independence and are increasingly becoming accepted. Assistive robots (ARs) are robots that provide aid or support to a human user. A physically assistive robot (PAR) gives aid or support to a human user through physical interaction. Socially assistive robots (SARs) share with PARs the goal of assisting human users, but the assistance is provided through social interaction rather than physical interaction.