Words by Smiley Team
Nothing is as sure in life as aging, and as we get older the world and people around us change. As retirement age approaches friends can become sparse, busy with family or their own lives, and you can lose family. People move on or pass away. With that comes loneliness and isolation.
A report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine points out that more than one-third of adults aged 45 and older feel lonely, and nearly one-fourth of adults aged 65 and older are considered to be socially isolated. An estimated 14 million elderly Americans live alone, and as Baby Boomers age that number is expected to grow. According to the CDC, this can have adverse effects on people, putting them at a higher risk for conditions like dementia, heart disease, depression, and anxiety.
New York state is taking action to address this issue, distributing 800 robot companions to older people around the state that will serve as pseudo-companions. The robots won’t help with any physical tasks but will be similar to Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa, in that they will help people keep in contact, have small talk, and keep track of things like health and wellness goals.
The scheme is being organized by the New York State Office for the Aging.
The robots are named ElliQ and built by Israeli firm Intuition Robotics and are intended to promote independence for older individuals while providing some companionship.
“Many features attracted us to ElliQ — that it is a proactive tool, remembers the interactions with the individual, focuses on health and wellness, stress reduction, sleep, hydration, etc,” NYSOFA director Greg Olsen told The Verge. “It focuses on what matters to individuals: memories, life validation, interactions with friends and families and promotes overall good health and well being.”
The creators, Intuition Robotics, claim that the robot can essentially endear itself to its users, as it's supposed to remember key details about a user’s life and shape its character to their own. It will crack more jokes if the user tends to laugh a lot, for example.
This will be one of the first widespread deployments of the robot after years of home trials.
DONATE: Pets for the Elderly is a non-profit that does similar work to the New York plan, except instead of robots it provides older people with pets for companionship.
SUPPORT: Give your family calls. Join groups that go and meet with older people. Maybe just strike someone up in conversation. To people that are lonely and struggling with isolation, this can mean the world.
