R e v i e w

social robots, a particular type of assistive robotics designed for social interaction with humans, could play an important role with respect to the health and psycho-logical well-being of the elderly. Objectives Assistive social robots are believed to be useful in eldercare for two reasons, a functional one and an affective one. Such robots are developed to function as an interface for the elderly with digital technology, and to help increase the quality of life of the elderly by providing companionship, respectively. There is a growing attention for these devices in the literature. However, no comprehensive review has yet been performed to in-vestigate the effectiveness of such robots in the care of the elderly. Therefore, we systematically reviewed and analyzed existing literature on the effects of assistive social robots in health care for the elderly. We focused in particular on the com-panion function. Data Sources A systematic search of MEDLINE, CINAHL, Psy-cINFO, The Cochrane Library databases, IEEE, ACM libraries and finally Google Scholar was performed for records through December 2007 to identify articles of all studies with actual subjects aimed to assess the effects of assistive socia