Redefining robot based technologies for elderly people assistance: a survey

We analyse the state of the art of hi-tech and robot based technologies in terms of Assistive Technology for all patients and, in particular, elderly people assistance and everyday activities aid. We focus on different aspects and characteristics of these tools, such as playfulness, invasiveness, learning-speed, efficiency, short and long-term effect, active vs. passive, etc.

We do so by showing the most important existing examples, and by taking into account all the possible factors that might help researchers when thinking of developing appropriate technologies for elderly care, as well as, for their relative assistance personnel. Indeed, while in rehabilitation robotics, a major role is played by the human-machine interface (HMI) used to gather the patient's intent from biological signals, and convert them into control signals for the robotic artefacts, surprisingly, decades of research have not yet declared what the optimal HMI is in this context [1].

Further, there is an urgent need to clarify how various technologies can be a goal or an approach for preventive, rehabilitative and assistive interaction. Therefore, we try to make a first step towards a redefinition of Robotics Assistive Technology.