Position paper: robots as companions and therapists in elderly care

Given the increasing portion of elderly people in the western world and severe lacks in care-taking, we believe that we should research possibilities to employ robots in elderly care. Social robots could offer companionship as well as treatment of physical and psychological disturbances. In our research, we propose to adapt treatments from positive psychology to robots in order to increase the wellbeing of elderly people in the long run. In a first study, we suggest that the role that the users will subscribe to the robot (therapist or companion) might make a severe difference on the effectiveness of the treatment and the social acceptance of the robot systems