The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Healthcare for the Elderly

Nowadays the development of technology has brought many advantages to human’s life. Technology’s impact on human’s life is undeniable when it affects humans in many ways, such as the way individuals communicate, learn and think. Robotics is a great achievement among products created by technology. The values they can bring to humans are productivity, safety, time and money saving. Since the appearance, robotics’ contribution has made the use of them to become more widespread in various industries, from manufacturing, household service, military to healthcare. Specifically in healthcare, robotics makes a big impact by participating in surgical, disinfection and taking care of the elderly. Meanwhile, the elderly population is rapidly increasing in the world and it makes the demand of caring serives for the elderly elevating. For example, Japan will be having a third of the population that will turn 65 and older in the year 2035. Other countries with high population, such as Germany, China and Italy will be facing the same problem. The raising question is how to provide sufficient nursing care for a large amount of the elderly when the human resources may be in a shortage and unable to meet the demand. In addition to attracting more labors into working in nursing care for the elderly, robotics is considered as a solution to ease the shortage of labors and extra provision of nursing care for the elderly. Based on those facts, my thesis’ aim was to gather evidence-based information to conduct a study about how impacting robotics can be in delivering healthcare for the elderly by using literature review methodology. The research question is: what are the benefits of robotics for elderly patients? The study findings show that robotics can benefit the elderly by assisting them in mobility, physiological assessment and monitoring, activities of daily living, rehabilitation, navigation, improving care quality for the elderly with dementia and providing companionship. The study also shows some limitations on using robotics. However, there are more positive sides than negatice ones. The resources used in the thesis were obtained from reliable databases, such as CINAHL (EBSCO) and Academic Search Elite which are specializing in healthcare study. The article search process follows principles of inclusion criteria, such as the articles primarily researching the impact of robotics on healthcare for the elderly, publishing in English, from the year 2000 onward and in full text. It results in 141 articles found, in which 39 from CINAHL and 102 from Academic Search Elite. Then the relevance of the topic, abstract and ultimately full text of the articles were evaluated, leading to 8 selected articles in total, in which 4 from CINAHL and 4 from Academic Search Elite. After that, content analysis of 8 articles was performed and key findings were found to serve for answering the research question. Robotics can help the elderly in mobility, physiological assessment, monitoring and then providing their remote communication with nurses and caregivers. Robotics, such as telepresence robot system, can also assist the elderly in their daily activities and support professional caregivers to be less burden. The elderly especially benefits from robotics in rehabilitation and navigation. Additionally, life care for the elderly with dementia is developed by using robotics. For example, social robot Sophie and Jack that are designed for emotional, intentional communication and interaction purposes, are also key in encouraging engagement with dementia elderly, therefore, can help to boost dementia care. Another benefit of robotics is being able to befriend the elderly. By being able to interact with humans in some ways and helping them in household chores, robotics can become a good companionship with the elderly. Some limitations on using robotics are also being discussed, such as their role in medical and dentistry unclear, the trust in using them, unpredicted effects and consequences, financial burden. However, the result finding in the thesis still insists on supporting robotics’ roles in caring for the elderly. With careful use, robotics can be utilized to support daily activity and provide the elderly a companionship, so that they can become less lonely. More research and development of robotics are necessary for the future, so that robotics can improve to meet more demands in providing care for the elderly and ensure safety requirements