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After outliving Booker T. Bones, their second service dog, Brenda and Brian Marquis still needed help with some of the more difficult parts of daily life.<\/p>\n
They found Robbie, a\u00a0robot\u00a0that rolls out of a hallway into their living room several times a day.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you want to exercise now? Please answer yes or no,\u201d the caregiver robot asks 59-year-old Brian Marquis, who has been living with a traumatic brain injury since a 2012 car crash.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes,\u201d he responds. Then he stands up as the robot\u2019s googly-eyed digital screen \u201cface\u201d morphs into an exercise video that guides him through an afternoon workout.<\/p>\n
The decades-long quest to build\u00a0home robots\u00a0that are both helpful and lifelike \u2014 spurred on by fictional machines like The Jetsons\u2019 humanoid maid Rosie \u2014- is still mostly a pipe dream. That\u2019s despite growing appeal as the oldest\u00a0baby boomers\u00a0are turning 80 this year and the United States faces a deepening shortage of home care aides, driven by low wages, high turnover and demanding workloads.<\/p>\n
But the machine helping the Marquis family \u2014 a robot piloted by a University of New Hampshire laboratory, with funding from the National Institute on Aging \u2014 offers a glimpse of the emerging possibilities.<\/p>\n
\u2018Stretch\u2019 aids a dementia patient with a range of tasks<\/p>\n
The wheeled robot that some have likened to a coat rack was not what Brenda Marquis initially had in mind when she wrote an email to a robotics professor at nearby UNH, asking for advice on robotic dogs.<\/p>\n
Robbie, the couple\u2019s name for a new robot model officially called Stretch 4, spends much of the day at a charging station between the kitchen and bedroom. When it comes out, it does important work, like nudging Brian, who has dementia, to eat lunch or drink water.<\/p>\n
Brenda Marquis, 59, said she and her husband have physical, cognitive and emotional disabilities that make life complex.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been kind of trapped in a problem here in New Hampshire of being able to find and recruit enough home care support,\u201d Brenda Marquis said in an interview at the couple\u2019s Durham, New Hampshire apartment, where she scoots around in a motorized wheelchair while taking care of her husband. \u201cThat was when I started looking into robotics and trying to figure out what to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the other end of Brenda\u2019s email was Momotaz Begum, a UNH computer science professor who has spent years experimenting with \u201csocially assistive\u201d robots that can aid people with Alzheimer\u2019s or other forms of dementia. Her robotics lab is full of experimental robots, including the four-legged variety.<\/p>\n
Begum said the lab asked focus groups of older adults at memory care units what kind of robot they would like as a home companion. Many preferred pet-like robot designs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe common feedback that we got about Stretch was, \u2018OK, this one looks like a coat hanger,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cBut what we learned over time is that the look doesn\u2019t matter.\u201d<\/p>\n
Several makers are designing robots for elder companionship<\/p>\n
Apart from robotic vacuum cleaners, the closest thing many older adults have to caregiving robots is a speaker powered by an artificial intelligence voice assistant like Alexa. Some robot makers have expanded that concept into swiveling\u00a0tabletop machines like ElliQ, designed for elder companionship.<\/p>\n
But those aren\u2019t mobile or functional enough for Begum, who said she is \u201ctrying to reduce that caregiver burden. And the caregiver actually does way more than social companionship.\u201d<\/p>\n
Humanoids, meanwhile, are still\u00a0far from being useful\u00a0in most homes and pose physical danger to people with limited mobility if the robot trips and falls.<\/p>\n
The founders of Hello Robot, maker of the Stretch robots, said its simplicity is the point.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur robot\u2019s very practical, pragmatic. I think it communicates that,\u201d said CEO Aaron Edsinger, a former director of robotics at Google. \u201cIf you show up looking like a humanoid, that expectation\u2019s going to be set so high, it\u2019s going to be very hard to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
The typical version of the Stretch 4 includes a telescoping gripper that can retrieve a water bottle and hold it out for a person to drink through a straw. Show it a prescription bottle and it can help read the fine print. The robot pulls together information from its cameras and onboard sensors, together with other sensors installed in a home, to figure out its location and who is in the room.<\/p>\n
Manufactured at Hello Robot\u2019s headquarters in Martinez, California, and sold for nearly $30,000, the new model that launched in May is far from being as ubiquitous as a\u00a0Roomba\u00a0or an AI-powered speaker. But for its target clientele, it can be a lifeline.<\/p>\n
Robbie\u2019s programmed care protocol for Brian is posted on the couple\u2019s wall, and it includes exercise instructions, meal and medicine reminders, evening routine reminders and quick washup prompts that are only triggered after Brian enters the bathroom.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was never into technology,\u201d Brian Marquis said. \u201cThen I realized I can\u2019t remember to wash my face and my armpits. So, it just really kind of set me free almost.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brenda Marquis said it also freed her from hours of daily work and helped her reduce expenses. Fearful of leaving her husband at home too long, she was ordering groceries on Instacart. Now she can leave him with Robbie and go get groceries herself.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can go ahead and go to that mahjong game or whatever. Robbie\u2019s gonna take care of him,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u2014\u2014-<\/p>\n
AP journalist Rodrique Ngowi contributed to this report.<\/p>\n
#elderly #injured #robots #home #care #support #home<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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