Humanoid Robots in Assistive Health Care

  Guest Post: Lauryn Schimmel, Managing Director, ChartaCloud Technologies

While many are aware of the uses of advanced surgical robots that perform precise roles during surgery, I wanted to take this opportunity to highlight and share some of the other currently active roles that humanoid robots are taking in healthcare today! Words cannot express the joy experienced when a robot can become a distraction, educator, and a friend to children in frightening hospital corridors. In addition, witnessing a robot bring seniors to their feet and smiles to their faces during what started as just another day in a senior living community is powerfully meaningful and illustrative of the amazing world of technological innovation that we live in.  I invite you to take a look at some of the exciting things that are happening in the world of humanoid robotics!

Pediatric Healthcare & Dentistry

Humanoid Robots equipped with proprietary RxApplications^TM are clinically proven to reduce children’s pain by 50% and increase vaccination rates by 10%. The humanoid robot in pediatric care settings acts as a pain coach, physical companion, and motivator. RxApplications^TM control the humanoid robots behaviors during a specific medical procedure. These behaviors are sequenced to work at the same pace as the healthcare professional who is conducting the medical procedure. The humanoid robot coaches, educates and provides companionship before, during, and after procedures using research-based cognitive-behavioral interventions. RxApplications^TM are customized for each hospital and allow the hospital to innovate their use of the humanoid robot. Templates are used to create RxApplications^TM when available, otherwise it is possible to develop new medical and dental procedures from scratch.

Current RxApplications^TM in use include:

□        Blood Test □        Breathing Coaching □        Dental Cleaning □        Dental Local Anesthetic □        Dental Nitrous Oxide □        Dressing Changes □        EEG □        Foley Catheter Removal

□        Induction □        IV Start □        Medical Play □        Orthodontist Greeting □        Oxygen Tube Insertion □        Port Access □        Vaccination □        Videofluoroscopic Swallow Study

In the Pediatric Healthcare setting, the humanoid robot provides benefit to every clinic as well as for hospice care. The robot was able to increase vaccination rates by 10% during a clinical study by calming children that were kicking, punching, and biting the nurses beforehand. The robot provides relief to children as young as two and as old as sixteen years old.

Senior Living

NAO, the humanoid robot developed and designed by Aldebaran Robotics, is currently located in over 200 assisted living communities around the world. Its first purpose to was demonstrate some exercise to the residents and have the residents imitate NAO doing the same movement to help them move and stretch. This enabled caregivers to really be by the resident’s side and help those who needed movement correction or assistance, while NAO led the show. With this great success, more and more caregivers are asking for other behaviors and applications. The elderly see NAO as a little child and often, when NAO is introduced to them, they take him in their arms like a baby and start to baby him.

One day, during a presentation, one resident named Marcel, began to talk with NAO. Using the ZORA platform, it was possible to answer through the robot to Marcel. They spoke together nearly 20 minutes. This was awesome because Marcel typically was a withdrawn resident and during these 20 minutes he spoke more than what he had done for 4 years during his life at the retirement home.

NAO can be remotely controlled by the staff; this way the robot can walk into a room “by itself” instead of being carried in by a caregiver. This way, the resident can naturally discuss with NAO and have the feeling of being “alone” with him. Of course, the whole situation is monitored thanks to video and audio streaming and the caregivers can supervise and interact through NAO. NAO helps the caregivers support residents, alleviate loneliness, and make them interact in a natural way.

In addition, NAO is able to assist the caregivers. There are a lot of “cold tasks” meaning that there are some duties such as answering to frequent questions of the residents, that take a lot of time and aren’t ‘as important’ as other tasks. So the caregivers often neglect them. For instance, every day, every resident asks (and sometimes more than once): “What are we eating today?”. The caregivers haven’t enough time to answer to everyone. So, they had the idea of using NAO to do it. The robot stays on a table each morning and tells the daily menu when a resident pushes one of its foot’s bumpers. The other foot allows the resident to hear the main news of the day. This simple application makes both the residents and the caregivers very happy.

Autism Special Education

The humanoid robot can engage children with applications designed for special education. The NAO robot is especially suited to interact with autistic children because the NAO robot is interactive and fun, engaging and captivating, and adaptive to the needs of the classroom from individuals to groups. It is a great help for teachers that really appreciate eliminating monotonous tasks. The NAO robot has a pack of applications inspired by commonly practiced special education teaching methods (ABA, PECS, TEACCH, DENVER, SCERTS) to unlock deeper learning in the classroom. The applications are mult-educational and focus on educational lessons, communication skills, and daily life knowledge. The applications are structured to make children with disabilities comfortable and confident and they can be adapted to individual motivators, internal states, and personality to create the perfect match.

The NAO robot is very predictable and reduces natural anxiety, its tireless features repeat until a child understands, and it is judgment free which increases a child’s confidence. NAO is able to bridge the human and technological worlds, linking autistic children by encouraging social interaction, learning, confidence, and self-esteem. The NAO robot is able to build the following skills: time perception, imitation, theory of mind empathy, join attention, turn-taking, academic skills, body awareness, verbal communication object labeling, nonverbal communication, and eye contact.

Physical Therapy

Within the Department of Rehabilitation at the University Hospital Ghent, the robot is used to show what exercises a patient has to do, and with what number of repetitions. The NAO robot installed with the Zora solution, is a small and very mobile robot with a high feel-good factor, she gives repeated and verbal instructions, supported by music and sound. It is just this combination that encourages children and seniors to move and exercise. Custom exercise routines for Parkinson’s Physical Therapy and Cerebral Palsy are two applications that are currently being developed.

It is exciting to be able to share some of these current use cases with you all. Humanoid robots are already assisting in healthcare roles today!

For more information:

ChartaCloud Technologies

info@chartacloud.com

603-580-1088

It’s Time for Enlightened Corporations to Meet the Needs of Employee Caregivers

The National Alliance for Caregiving reports that caregivers who don’t receive support from employers experience a negative impact on their careers. 

In fact:

·         66% of caregiver employees have gone into work late, left early or taken time off during the day to deal with caregiving issues

·         20% of caregivers were forced to take a leave of absence from work

·         10% of caregiver employees quit or take early retirement

·         9% of caregivers reduce hours or take less demanding jobs

·         5% of caregiver employees turn down a promotion

The negative impact on the corporation itself is more staggering. “Absenteeism” and “Presenteeism” (when I am at work but not really working- I am caring) is costing corporations millions. Furthermore, unhealthy stress on caregivers trying to balance the demands of care giving and job responsibilities ultimately adds more expense to an employer’s health costs. The day is fast arriving when employee care giving support via an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) will be the rule. Unless corporations move swiftly to craft and adopt enlightened practices and policies we will see government mandated employee caregiver support laws emerge. The numbers of employee care givers are dramatically expanding as the ‘Boomer’ population ages and retires. Caregivers will become a yet another protected class by necessity and by law.

Technology can play a vital role in lowering costs, lessening stress and reducing hospital admissions by connecting care givers and their families so that everyone can be informed of the health status of their isolated or remote ‘parents’ on any given day. If Ian employee had this technology as a benefit option as care giver they could then can more easily decide whether they need to go to ’Mom’s home’ or can actually go on into work. Or, if an employee is on a business trip, having such connectivity would allow me to concentrate on the task at hand by knowing what is happening and if a pro-active care intervention is needed.

If you are considering ‘care giver technology’ as a corporate benefit (EAP) I would like to know your thoughts.

Home Care Technology's Third Wave

I believe that we can all agree that technology has and will continue to change the landscape of home care. Most of technologies’ initial wave was focused on making business operations more efficient. Cost based decisions. We are now well into the second phase - patient-centric technologies – technologies utilized to enhance monitoring, care adherence plans and behaviors and reduce re-admissions more cost based decisions. The third wave has started – health care technology as a revenue generating profit center.

The unique impact of this third wave is that it will transform technology driven enhanced care and the attendant quality outcomes into profit centers. Like previous technology waves it will start primarily in private care. Technology will be a significant client and partner attraction. See the handwriting on the ‘government’s CMS wall’. More visibility to STAR Ratings. More pressure to give patients a voice in care. More decisions being driven by value based marketing, that is being able to prove that your outcomes’ in care giving performance is better than that of others and the restructuring of payment models to enhance the use and adoption of technology. Technology creates better health outcomes.

I know that we have many ‘payment’ hurdles to overcome. But I believe that home care will have little choice but to get on technologies’ third wave and manage it not just as a cost center but also as a revenue center. So why wait. Today, many of the technologies can start out as self- funding profit centers. Offering such services and not only differentiates your service but can be crafted to earn a profit.

The balance is shifting to where home care services will need a robust IT inventory of customer oriented technology services and a concurrent delivery and support capability to remain competitive and profitable. My forecast is that the solutions/revisions to existing ‘payment hurdles’ will outpace home care’s ability to adopt, deploy and manage future technologies.

What do you think?

Mike Radice serves as Chairman of the Technology Advisory Boards for ChartaCares.com and Generationcares.com

Health Care Tablets 'and' Robots

For many decades I have been working in the technology convergence space. Health care technologies are my current focus. Many years ago I was in a meeting and was struck by the simplicity and insight voiced by Steve Wozniak the Apple so-founder. His comment: “Innovation is about the ‘and’”, he said. It’s not about pulling something completely new out of the ether, it’s about identifying how and when the convergence, the ‘and’ of technologies provides an innovative opportunity. When ‘this’ and ‘that’ are thoughtfully understood and combined into what then becomes something new and innovative.

Currently robot assisted health care is typically thought of as ‘that’ and challenged as striving to replace human care givers. No one that I know has replacing human to human care as an objective. Lessening the burden of care delivery, increasing the available resources that can be dedicated to care, more attentive care, more aware care, more customized care and care that enhances the quality of life- yes. And, good objectives they are.

But we have now reached the moment whereby many will now begin to more fully understand that robots are the new interface to knowledge – and action. Having successfully created an ‘and’ by bringing together what was only tablet based software with robots convinces me that robots will indeed win their place – in health care. Now we have an attentive robot that can move and ‘seek and surmise about’ a health situation and reach out and suggest to a care giver that something needs attention. At the most basic level, see if someone is moving or static. Is that someone responsive to queries? Is that someone happy or sad? Most critical is the do something about it aspect - like move around - to deliver medicine, do an infra-red scan on body temperature or measure heart rate or launch a video tele-presence call to remote care giver.

Yes, it will take a while to achieve robot price points that broaden consumer use which is why we should continue to focus so intently on understanding and delivering the benefits of tablet based care giving systems. Not only are they effective, they are inexpensive. Tablets have moved the needle in health care and as they move from the social arena into meaningful care delivery they are the stepping stone to the next great ‘and’.

So I agree tablets are the right move today but it is… ‘and’ robots tomorrow.

If you would like to discuss the impact of tablets and robots in health care feel free to reach out to me at mike@chartacloud.com 

Medicine for Care Givers

There can be little doubt that family centered care giving is becoming now a consuming activity for three generations. The Boomer retirement generation is now caring for their parents. The ‘sandwich generation’ will need soon to care for the Boomers. No need to re-visit the facts of the rapidly escalating numbers that are impacting all generations. I am sure you are well versed in these numbers at the top level. It’s a big deal. But the issues and challenges we are facing are broadening beyond the numbers with each passing day. Experience brings further discovery.

What needs to be kept in mind is that care giving is a one to one relationship. Child to parent for example. While the ‘big numbers’ matter, in the end, the real issues get reduced to ‘my family’ to ‘my parents’. Does it really help knowing that millions of others face similar issues? The choices, the decisions and the options all need to be ultimately decided one family at a time.

The stress and burden of being a daily care giver is only further exacerbated with the ever present challenge of knowing what is actually happening, where to start next and when to start doing what. Each day sits on the precipice of bringing a totally unanticipated and expected care giving event. As time wears on, so does the stress, weighing ever more heavily on the care giver. Most of us were never schooled or trained for this role in life. One day it just fell to us.

Being dedicated to embracing care givers with technology solutions that they can use to embrace the ones they care for has become a life mission for me – more than a business vision. I have carefully chosen the word embrace for use here and in my other writings because in no way is technology going to replace human to human care. But technology used to embrace the circumstance can help to manage, control and expedite care. Technology can lessen the burden. It can reduce the likelihood of hospitalizations. It can improve quality of life. And, yes, it surely can make care giving just a bit more manageable and bearable.

What we have learned is that for the technology to be correctly helpful, it needs to be defined - one family at time. It needs to be able to work for that family – and for that care giver.

So, just like any medicine, technology has its place and proper use. Just like the care giver’s oath to “do no harm” technology needs to help. It can be a cure for the debilitating effects of isolation. Properly dispensed it can aid in recoveries. And, it most certainly can help improve the quality of life for all involved. 

In the world that lies ahead for all too many, the ‘first patient’ to be considered is the care giver and for them technology can be a powerful medicine.

Mike radice is Chairman of the Technology Advisories of www.chartacares.com and www.GenerationCares.com and his blog can be read at www.chatraplace.blogspot.com

An Observation About AARP’s Project Catalyst Report on Caregivers and Technology

At the outset, let me start by saying that I am a biased reader of this report and that in no manner has AARP or the report’s authors endorsed the claims I make below. The report’s developers did a first rate job at synthesizing the data, the findings and surfacing the issues and trends. This report will be must read and an oft quoted source of statistics for anyone involved in home based care and care giving. My appreciation also extends to the sponsors of the report.

Why am I a biased reviewer? Over the last two years as an innovator in this market place I have become deeply involved with the technologies available. I can confidently state that the survey’s response statistics accurately reflects my real world experience interacting with end users.

Based upon that experience, and now substantiated by this report, our MyHomeReach product, a tablet based system for care givers and care recipients, could accurately have been included as the ‘poster child’ for a recommended solution. Point by point, MyHomeReach surpasses the stated expectations and requirements recommended for consideration by technology providers by the report’s authors. We have done more that consider them we have done it.

To state it another way, this report could easily serve as a blueprint for why MyHomeReach was created.

If you want to read the just published report it is, as of this writing, currently available at:

http://www.aarp.org/content/dam/aarp/home-and-family/personal-technology/2016/04/Caregivers-and-Technology-AARP.pdf?intcmp=RDRCT-ESI-INNOV50-CAREGVRTECH-20160427

If you want to see the solution, see:

http://www.chartacares.com/#!homereach/c16jo

So, thank you AARP and the report’s Sponsors. At ChartaCares we are profoundly encouraged and will innovate on!

Loneliness Is A Real Killer - Scene 2

While I am continually saddened by the impact of ‘loneliness’, I am pleased to share an article just published in the LA TIMES written by Melissa Healy and just published on April 19.

I first wrote about this growing scourge because of the firsthand impact I have experienced with providing technologies to reduce the impact of loneliness especially on seniors. Aging is challenging. Aging at home more challenging. Aging alone, nearly un-challengeable. And now, the data is in. loneliness kills.

See: http://chartaplace.blogspot.com/2015/12/loneliness-is-real-killer.html

I am unabashed in offering you awareness of two technologies that can be transformative in the lives of seniors -- our MyHomeReach and Selfhelp systems. I intend to offend no one using this forum to increase awareness. If I can help even one life, it will have been worth being bounced from some user groups.

See Melissa’s article at: http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-loneliness-heart-risk-smoking-20160419-story.html

I can be reached at www.chartacares.com or by phone 603-580-5497 if you would like to learn more.

Mike Radice