Study on the biped walking pet robot with short legs (2nd report: Pet robots for the reminiscence therapy)

Abstract

Along with the extreme aging of the population in Japan, the number of elderly with dementia has been increasing. Measures to address their symptoms and suppress the onset of dementia have been demanded. Currently, treatments such as nursing care, medication, and psychological care are adopted. Psychological care includes reminiscence therapy, reality orientation, music therapy, and animal therapy. It is reported that animal therapy can be effective for those who are hard to deal with and have difficulty communicating, such as the elderly with severe dementia, those who tend to refuse general recreation and care, and those who are unresponsive and impassive and act purposelessly. However, having pets is sometimes difficult in hospitals or elderly-care facilities because of the necessity of caring for pets and possible problems such as allergic reactions, infectious diseases, and biting and clawing by pets. Therefore, animal therapy has generally not been popular. Under such circumstances, pet-robot therapy, instead of animal therapy, has been attracting attention. Research on cat-shaped, dog-shaped, and seal-shaped robots has been actively carried out. However, users cannot feel intimacy, joy, or peace with these pet robots over a long time, and robots fail to give a sense of comfort to users, which is a current problem with pet robots that should be solved. In this study, considering the problems of animal therapy, we propose pet robots that can be used in reminiscence therapy, which is reported to be effective for the alleviation and suppression of the symptoms of dementia, and we examine the shape and functions required of the pet robots.

Keywords

• human interface
• suppression of dementia
• psychological care
• pet robot
• reminiscence therapy
• biped walking